MORNING'S WALK 



FROM 






LONDON 



TO 



KEW. 



By sir RICHARD PHILLIPS. 



LONDON: 



PRINTED BY J. ADLARD, 23, BARTHOLOMEW -CLOSE: 

SOLD BY JOHN SOUTER, 1, PATERNOSTER-ROW ; 

AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 



1817. 




fs 



^•^ 



THE LIBRARY 
OP CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



PREFACE, 



The Author of the following Obser- 
vations, made during a morning's 
WALK, will doubtless be allowed 
to possess but a moderate degree of 
literary ambition. He has not qua- 
lified himself, by foreign travels, to 
transport his readers above the 
clouds, on the Andes, the Alps, or 
the Appenines ; to alarm them by 
descriptions of Earthquakes, or 
Eruptions; or to astonish them by 
accounts of tremendous Chasms, 
Caverns, and Cataracts: but he has 
restricted his researches to subjects 
of home scenery, which thousands 
can daily examine after him; and 
consequently has not enjoyed that 

A 2 



ir 

latitude of fancy, or been able to 
exercise any of those rare powers 
of hemming and seeing, by means 
of which travellers into distant 
regions are enabled to stimulate 
curiosity and monopolize fame. 

The class of readers who seek 
for sources of pleasure beyond the 
ordinary course of nature, will 
therefore feel disappointment in 
attempting to follow a pedestrian 
tourist through a route so destitute 
of wonders. Nor will this feeling, 
it is to be feared, be confined to 
searchers after supernatural phe- 
nomena in regard to the facts which 
appertain to such a work. In the 
sentiments which accompany his 
narrations, it will be found that the 
Author, accustomed to think for 
himself, admits no standards of 
truth superior to the evidence of 



the senses and the deductions of 
reason ; consequently, that his con- 
clusions on many important topics 
are at variance with existing prac- 
tices, whenever it appears they have 
no better foundation than the con- 
tinuity of prejudices and the arbi- 
trary laws of custom. He there- 
fore entertains very serious doubts 
whether his work will be accept- 
able to those LEARNED PrOFESSORS 

in Universities, who teach no doc- 
trines or opinions but those of 
their predecessors ; or whether it 
will suit Students, whose advance- 
ment depends on their submission 
to the dogmata of such superiors. 
He questions whether it will ever 
be quoted as an authority by 
Statesmen who consider the will 
of princes as standards of wis- 
dom; — by Legislators who bartef 



away their votes, and decide on the 
presumed integrity of ministers and 
leaders; — ^by Politicians who ba- 
nish the moral feelings from their 
practices; — or by Economists who 
do not consider individual happiness 
as the primary object of their calcu- 
lations. Nor is he more sanguine 
that his work will prove agreeable 
to those Natural Philosophers 
who account for phenomena by the 
operation of virtues or influences 
which have no mechanical contact ; 
— or to those Metaphysicians who 
conceive that truth can be exhibited 
only in the sophistical subtleties of 
the schools displayed in the mazy 
labyrinths of folios and quartos \ — 
or to those Theologians who main- 
tain that the obligations of reason 
and morality are superseded by those 
of Faith. While, in regard to those 



Vll 

Topographers and Antiquaries 
whose studies are bounded by dates 
of erection, catalogues of occupants, 
and copies of tomb-stones ; — to those 
Naturalists who receive delight 
from enumerations of Linnaean 
names of herbs, shrubs, and trees, 
and from Wernerian descriptions of 
rocks ; — to those Bibliomaniacs 
who value a book in the inverse 
ratio of the information it contains ; 
— and to those learned Philolo- 
gists who see no beauties in modern 
tongues, and affect to find (^but 
without anticipating any of them, J 
all modern discoveries of Natural 
Philosophy in Homer, and all im- 
provements of mental Philosophy in 
the mysteries of Plato — the author 
deeply laments his utter inability 
to accommodate either his taste, 
his feelings, or his conclusions. 



Vlll 

In regard to the spirit, tone, and 
character of the author^s opinions, 
they have necessarily emanated from 
the state of knowledge, in an aera 
when, at the termination of four cen- 
turies after the adoption of Printing, 
mankind have achieved four great 
objects; (1,) in the revival of 
Literature, and regeneration of 
Philosophy; (2,) in the emancipa- 
tion of Christendom from the sys- 
tematic thraldom of Popery ; (3,) 
in the assertion of the rights op 
MAN, against overwhelming usurpa- 
tions ; and (4,) in the establishment 
of A spirit of free enquiry, 
which constitutes the vivifying ener- 
gy of the age in which we live, 
and promises the most important 
results in regard to the future con- 
dition and happiness of the human 
race. 



IX 



The accomplishment of these 
ch'cmiistances has generated, in 
all countries, a numerous class 
of readers, among whom are 
many Professors, Philosophers, 
Statesmen, Politicians, Theolo- 
gians, Antiquaries, Naturalists, 
and EMINENT Scholars; besides 
Amateurs of general Literature, 
with whose taste, feelings, and 
principles, the Author of this volume 
is anxious to identify his own, and 
whose favourable opinion he is am- 
bitious to enjoy ; — these are the 
free and honest searchers after 
moral, political, and natural 
truth, — the votaries of common 
sense, — the patients of their natu- 
ral sensibilities, — all, who are 
neither too old, too powerful, nor 
TOO wise, — and, finally, all those 
who pass their lives in search 



OF HAPPINESS, and who are not 
unwilling to be pleased, in what- 
soever form, or by whomsoever the 
attempt may be made : 



TO SUCH ESTIMABLE PER- 
SONS, IN ALL COUNTRIES, 
AND IN ALL SITUATIONS, 
THE AUTHOR RESPECT- 
FULLY DEDICATES THIS 
V0LU3IE. 

HoIIowai/, Middlesex ; 

Fehruary 8, 1817. 



CONTENTS. 



1St. James's Park -- 2 

Beggars ,.,,-..-.«.---.-.-.-.•---. 3 

Milk Fair 5 

Regent's Palace 6 

Washington and Alfred ...,......-.-...,- 7 

Public Offices 9 

Military Slaves 10 

Country Residents... ... 11 

St. James's Palace ....... 14 

Promenade in the Mall ..-..- -. 15 

Suggested Improvements 17 

PiMLICO 18 

The Ty-bourn , 19 

Isle of St. Peter's 20 

Chelsea ^ 21 

Ranelagh ........_>.,.,.,....,,... 22 

Chelsea Buns , 25 

Hospital 27 

Villany of War ... ,-... 28 

Invalid without Arms 29 

A Centenarian 32 

Securities of Peace 33 

Caesar's Ford 34 

The Botanic Garden 27 

Don Saltero's .... . 38 

Sir Thomas More 39 

Sir Hans Sloane 40 



XLl CONTENTS. 

Battersea 40 

Waste of Public Wealth 4l 

Cupidity of Trade 42 

Insufficiency of Wealth -- 44 

Mr. Brunei's Saw Mills... .-.--- 4^ 

• Shoe Manufactory 47 

Evils of Machinery 48 

Lord Boliugbroke's House 51 

York House 57 

An American Aloe ...^ 59 

Reflections on Pride...... ,...-.......-.. — 

Wandsworth - --. 63 

Phenomena of Rivers ,.-., .......... — 

Distilleries and Drunkenness 64> 

Haunted House 66 

Causes of Superstition ............. --- ^8 

Population of Villages. - 74 

Iron-Rail Roads...' 75 

Borough of Oarrat 77 

Garrat Elections - 78 

Value of Popular Elections. .......-.- - 82 

An Oil Mill 84 

An Iron Foundry - 8^ 

Inutility of Machinery 88 

Demon of War -- 89 

A Country Assembly.... ........... 9^ 

Vice of Balloting - 9^ 

Plan for rendering Society social 96 

Characteristics of Novels --.-.. 98 

^..^ Villages round London.... 100 

Condition of Poverty ...302 

Poverty and Wealth contrasted ...J 03 

Inadequate Remuneration of Labour. ....... 105 

Visit to Wandsworth Workhouse ....107 

Philosophy of Roads ...120 

Cruelty to Horses 121 

Value of good Foot-paths... 126 

Citizen's Villas 127 

Axioms of Political Economy ,,.....-.-..129 



CONTENTS. 



xiit 



Putney Heath ---130 

The Smoke of London -.131 

Earl Spencer's Park..-- -..--..-- 132 

Hartley's Fire-House -.134 

Means of Preventing Fires in Houses, and 7 ^35 

on Female Dress «-...... 3 

The Telegraph System 141 

Suggested Extension of - -146 

Interesting Prospect «..--- — .i48 

Reflections on the Metropolis .150 

Criminal Neglect of Statesmen lo5 

Removal of Misery 160 

Death and Character of Mr. Pitt. --....... 16 1 

Indifference of Statesmen .-. -.166 

Fruit Trees preferable to Lumber Trees i6S 

Roehampton 171 

Monastic Dwellings «..-...-....-...-• — - 

Inhabitants of Cottages. .........-.--. ...173 

Humility of Pride .-- .175 

Pilton's Invisible Fences -....•-.-.-...176 

House and Character of Mr. Goldsmid.....! 78 

Destructive Electric Storm -.--.-.-182 

Nature of Electricity investigated........ ..184 

Secondary Causes discussed... ...-.18S 

Security against Lightning -.-.-.-...-..189 

The District described ..... .-.-......191 

Dundas and Tooke contrasted -.192 

Barnes..,.. -..-- 193 

Its Poor-House on a Common ..-•.--^. — 

Wretchedness of Parish-Poor. -194 

Geology of Barnes-Common .--.....167 

Fitness and Harmony of Things... ........ 200 

Kit-Cat Club Rooms..... ...201 

Tonson the Bookseller........ . -._....... SOT 

Effect of distant Bells... 209 

Chiswick Church .---. ---.212 

Barnes Church -..--..-_.,... .... .215 

Enclosed Cemeteries -....--.--...*^,,,,...2l6 



atlV^ CONTENTS. 

Benevolence of Mr. Morris.............. .218 

Tragedy of the Count and Countess D'Au- \a,Q 

traigues J 

Horticultural Speculation of the Marquis \ 

deChabannes / ^^^ 

Supply of London with Vegetables.... 224 

Shropshire and Welsh Girls. „«« ...225 

Neglect of Public Cleanliness ....... .....229 

Cleanliness an Incentive of Virtue 231 

MORTLAKE 232 

Tomb of Partridge ...r. .. ...233 

Pretensions of Astrology . .235 

Doctrines of Fatality examined......... ...23^ 

Free-Will and Necessity discussed „ .241 

Success of Predictions referable to the Doc- ) ^ - 

trine of Chances ..... .-..-.-.. j ' 

Art of Fortune-Telling illustrated --..-,...250 

Tomb and Character of Alderman Barber 253 

Union and Multiplication of the Human Race 257 

Mortlake Church 263 

Picture of Parochial Happiness .......... .264 

Cause of its Failure. ..265 

Genuine Religion characterized.... ........266 

Vulgar Notions of Churches , ....268 

Belief in Ghosts exploded ............... 270 

Reflections on the Deity , 271 

Effluvia of Dead Bodies 273 

Impostures of Dr. Dee 275 

Virtues of Sir John Barnard ......._ 276 

Tomb of the Viscountess Sidmouth ........278 

False Foundation o? the late War,... , . .279 

Lesson to Mankind , 2S0 

Patriotism of the Common Council of Loudon 282 
Improved Psalmody of Gardiner ...... ....283 

Religious Statistics of Mortlake - 284 

Uses and Abuses of Church Bells.... ......285 

Dee's House 290 

Female Education discussed -......,.--.--291 



CONTENTS. , XY 

General Causes of Human Errors „„ .29* 

Proposed Improvement of Education '29S 

Manufactory of Delft Ware ..299 

Progress of the Arts ... «.-........--. 30 1 

Archiepiscopal Residence ... — ... — 302 

Mercy dispensed by the Catholic Priesthood. 305 

Food and Charity by the same ..-.--. SOS 

Enormous Walnut-Trees .-..310 

Box-Tree Arbour....,..,-- - .- 31 1 

Disinterment of the Dead *-- — 313 

Abundant Manure of Religious Houses 31^ 

Reflections on Past Ages............ 3i7 

Origin of Superstition 320 

Progress of Mythology 322 

Intolerance of Philosophical Schools....... .325 

Invocation to Philosophy 327 

The Author's System of Physics 329 

Popular Schools recommended 330 

Addresses of Females. _ .-..-.-,.--.334 

Changes wrought by Rivers...... ......---335 

Alternate Conversion of Land and Sea 33S 

The Primitive Earth 340 

Origin of Organization ......341 

Laws of Inorganic Matter.... ._,,,. .^....344 

~ Vegetable Existences. ... 345 

Loco- Motive Existences -347 

Principle of Vitality .,349 

Questions of the jFirst Philosophy. 350 

Compatibility, Fitness, and Harmony, iilus-1 ^^^ 

trated.... j "^^^ 

The Tides explained .............. ^ 354 

Phenomena of Rivers ... 355 

Causes of Sterility 356 

The Errors of Man in Society 357 

Interview with Gipsies.- ,,^ 363 

Social Slavery characterized .... ...... 365 

Gipsy Fortune-telling illustrated 36h 

Instance of Vulgar Terror 37 5 

Kevv Priory described 37u 



xn CONTENTS. 

Kew _ 377 

Its Chapel . .-_-.380 

Tomb of Meyer ^--. --..-.«.«-..... .381 

Church Fees 382 

Tomb of Gainsborough .............^ 38.3 

Comparison of Poetry and Painting.. ^3S4 

Tomb of Zoffany -«.-.. --....385 

— Hogarth........... , ....387 

• ■ Thomson ........ ..388 

The Author's Reflections and Conclusion.... 389 



%* To guard the work against some apparent 
anachronisms, it is proper to state, that the 
substance of the foUoicing Pages appeared in 
various Numbers of the Moiithly Magazine^ be^ 
ticeen the Years 1813 and 1816. In reprinting, 
in this form, many interpolations have been made, 
and some subjects of a temporary nature have been 
omitted: but it was often impossible, in treating 
of local situatio7is, to avoid some reference to 
temporary circumstances. 



A 

MORNING'S WALK 

FROM 

LONDON TO KEW. 



— »»M < — 

We roam into unhealthy climates, and en- 
counter difficulties and dangers, in search 
of curiosities and knowledge, although, if 
our industry were equally exerted at home, 
we might find in the tablets of Nature 
and Art, within our daily reach, inexhaus- 
tible sources of inquiry and contemplation. 
We are on every side surrounded by inter- 
esting objects; but, in nature, as in morals, 
we are apt to contemn self-knowledge, to 
look abroad rather than at home, and to 
study others instead of ourselves. Like 
the French Encyclopaedists, we forget our 
own Paris • or, like editors of newspapers, 
we seek for novelties in every quarter of 
the world, losing sight of the superior in- 
terests of our immediate vicinity. 



a A morning's walk 

These observations may perhaps serve 
as a sufficient apology for the narrative 
which follows : — existing notions, the love 
of the sublime, and the predilections above 
described, render it necessary for a home 
tourist to present himself before the public 
with modesty. ..The readers of voyages 
round the whole world, and of travels into 
unexplored regions of Africa and America, 
will scarcely be persuaded to tolerate a 
narrative of an excursion which began at 
mne in the morning and ended at six in 
the afternoon of the same day ! Yet such, 
truly, are the Travels which afford the 
materials of the present narrative; they 
were excited by a fine morning in the lat- 
ter days of April, and their scene was the 
high-road lying between London and 
Kew, on the banks of the Thames. 

With no guide besides a map of the 
country round the metropolis, and no set- 
tled purpose beyond what the weather 
might govern, I strolled towards St. 
James's Park. In proceeding between the 
walls frorai Spring Gardens, I found the 



FROIM LONDON TO KEW. 3 

lame and the blind taking their periodical 
stations on each side of the passage.- — I 
paused a few minutes to see them approach 
one after another as to a regular calling ; 
or as players to take their stations and 
enact their settled parts in this drama. 
One, a fellow, who had a withered leg, 
approached his post with a cheerful air; 
but he had no sooner seated himself, and 
stripped it bare, than he began such hide- 
ous moans as in a few minutes attracted 
several donations. Another, a bhnd wo- 
man, was brought to her post by a little 
boy, who carelessly leading her against the 
step of a door, she petulantly gave him a 
smart box of the ear, and exclaimed, 
'^D — n you, you rascal, can't you mind 
what you're about;" — and then, leaning 
her back to the wall, in the same breath, 
she began to chaunt a hymriy which soon 
brought contributions from many pious pas- 
sengers. 

The systematic movements of these peo- 
ple led me to inquire in regard to their con- 
duct and policy from an adjacent shop- 
b2 



4 A morning's walk , 

keeper, who told me, that about a dozen 
of them obtained a good living in that 
passage ; that an attendance of about two 
hours per day sufficed to each of them, 
when, by an arrangement among them- 
selves, they regularly succeed each other. 
He could not guess at the amounts thus 
collected, but he said, that he had once 
watched a noisy blind fellow for half an 
hour, and in that time saw thirty-four 
people give him at least as many half- 
pence; he thence, and from other observa- 
tions, concluded that in two or three hours 
each of them collects five or six shillings ! 
We cannot wonder then at the aversion 
entertained by these unhappy objects to 
the indiscriminate discipline of our com- 
mon work-houses; nor can we blame the 
sympathy of those benevolent persons who 
contribute their mite to relieve the cries 
of distress with which they are assailed. 
But it excites our wonder and grief that 
statesmen, who have superfluous means for 
covering the country with barracks, should 
find themselves unable to establish com- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 



fortable asylums for all the poor who are 
incurably diseased, in which they should 
be SO provided for, that it would be as 
criminal in them to ask, as in others to 
afford them^ eleemosynary relief. 

On my entrance into the Park, I was 
amused and interested by an assemblage of 
a hundred mothers, nurses, and valetudi- 
narians, accompanied by as many children, 
who are drawn together at this hour every 
fine morning by the metropolitan luxury of 
milk warm from the cow. Seats are pro- 
vided, as well as biscuits, and other con- 
veniences, and here from sun-rise till ten 
o'clock continues a milk fair ^ distinguished 
by its peculiar music in the lowing of cows, 
and in the discordant squalling of the nu- 
merous children. The privilege of keep- 
ing these cows, and of selling their milk 
on this spot, belongs to the gate-keepers 
of the Park ; and it must be acknowledged 
to be a great convenience to invalids and 
children, to whom this wholesome beve- 
rage and its attendant walk are often pre- 
scribed. 

B 3 



6 A morning's WALK 

On the right hand stands the garden-* 
wall of the puny, though costly, palace of 
the Regent, Prince of Wales. It is, how- 
ever, fortunate, that it is not larger, if the 
expenditure of palaces, like that of private 
houses, were to keep pace with their bulk. 
TJie inside is adorned like the palace of 
Aladin • .apd a better notion of its splendour 
may be formed, by stating that it has cost 
the labours of twenty thousand men for a 
year, or of one thousand for twenty years, 
than that above a million sterling has at 
different times been expended upon the 
building and furniture. Yet, it is said that 
it forms but the eastern wing of a palace, 
which the architects of this Prince have 
projected, and that half the south side of 
Pail-Mall and considerable tracts of. the 
Park will, be appropriated to complete their 
plans, if approved by their royal patrom 
I am aware, that the love of shew in 
princes, and persons in authority, is often 
justified by the alledged necessity of imr 
posing on the vulgar; but I doubt whether 
any species of imposition really producer 



PROM LaNDON TOXEW. 7 

the effect which the pomp of powBr is so 
wiUing to ascribe to it, as an dxc use for its 
own indulgences. Nor ought it ever to 
be forgotten, that no tinsel of gaudy trap- 
pings, no architectural arrangements of 
stone or wood, no bands of liveried slaves, 
(however glossed in various hues, or dis- 
guised by various names,) can sustain the 
glory of any power which despises public 
opinion, forgets the compact between all 
power and the people, violates the faith of 
public treaties, and measures its moral ob- 
ligations, not by the sense of justice, but 
by considerations of expediency and self- 
interest! On this important, though almost 
exhausted, topic, it should be known by 
all Princes who covet true glory, that 
Washington the Great hired no 
armed men to sustain his power, that his 
habits were in all things those of a private 
citizen, and that he kept but one coach, 
merely for occasions of state— his personal 
virtues being bis body-guards — the justice 
of his measures constituting the strength 
of his government, — -the renown of his past 



8 A morning's walk 

deeds enshrining him with more splendour 
than could, be conferred by the orders of 
all the courts in Europe — his unquestion- 
able love of public liberty endearing him 
to the people over whom he presided — 
and the pure flame of his patriotism caus- 
ing him to appear in their eyes as a being 
more than mortal ! Britain might envy 
America her Washington, if she could 
not herself boast of an Alfred, worthy 
also of being called the Great — a sove- 
reign who voluntarily conceded liberty to 
his people, and founded it on bases which 
all the inglorious artifices of his succes- 
sors have been unable to undermine — 
but, alas ! such men, like Epic poets, seem 
destined to succeed but once in a thousand 
years! 

On the left hand I beheld, in vari- 
ous magnificent erections, the germs of in- 
numerable associations, gratifying to the 
vice of national pride ; but affording little 
pleasure to one whose prejudices of prinr 
ciple, and habits of thinking, have taught 
bim to estimate all human labours by their 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 9 

influence on the happiness of the sentient 
creatures to whom the earth is a common 
inheritance. There was the British 
Admiralty — the just pride of a people's 
defence against foreign invaders — but less 
worthy of admiration, if ever used as an 
instrument of ambition, or as a means of 
gratifying base passions. There was the 
British War-Office, of which a Briton 
can say little, who doubts the policy of the 
colonial system, who feels a conviction 
that *^ Britain's best bulwarks are her 
wooden walls," and who thinks that the 
sword should never be wielded but by citi- 
zen soldiers, nor ever be used till the con- 
stable's staff has been exerted in vain. 
And there was the British Treasury, 
the talisman of whose power has destroyed 
the efficacy of title-deeds, and converted 
the land and houses of the empire into 
paper-money and stock-debts, for the pur- 
pose of carrying on wars and performing 
deeds, which impartial history will justly 
characterize, when alas ! the truth will be 
^useless to the suffering victims ! 



10 A morning's WALK 

Just at this moment I beheld several 
bands of armed men, disguised in showy 
liveries, drawn up in array to exercise 
themselves for combat. But, having no 
taste for such mistakes of power, and being 
in no degree deluded by the gloss of their 
clothes, the glitter of their murderous 
weapons, or the abuse of celestial har- 
mony in the skill of their musicians, I 
silently invoked the energies of truth to 
remove from the understandings of men, 
that cloud which permits such illusions to be 
successful. No legitimate power, like that 
of the government of Endand, founded on 
such bases as Magna Charta, the laws of 
Edward the First, the Petition of Right, the 
Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement, 
can, for its lawful purposes, ever stand in 
need, in a properly educated community, 
of the support of a single man armed with 
a murderous w^eapon. 

These piles of buildings, ranged in a semi- 
circular form, are imposing on the eye from 
their magnitude, and on the imagination 
from their fame. I paused to enjoy their 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 11 

perspective; but, is not senseless war, 
I exclaimed, even now ravaging or dis- 
turbing the four quarters of the world, 
and is it not from this scite that it receives 
its impulse and direction? I charitably 
hoped that mere errors of judgment had 
guided the councils of the men who in- 
habit these buildings — but I sickened as I 
thought of the consequences of their 
errors, perhaps at that moment displayed 
in distant parts of the earth in agonies of 
despair and in smoking ruins — and, to 
avoid the succession of feelings which 
were so painful, yet so unavailing, I 
turned away from the spot. 
; In my way towards and along the Mall, 
I ri^marked that few were walking in my 
direction; but that all the faces and foot- 
steps were earnestly directed towards Lon-^ 
don. The circumstance exemplified that 
feature of modern manners which leads 
thousands of those who are engaged in the 
active business of the metropolis to sleep, 
and to keep their families, in neighbouring 
villages. These thousands walk or ride, 



it A morning's walk 

therefore, every day to and from London, 
at hours corresponding with the nature 
and urgency of their employments. Be- 
fore nine o'clock the various roads are 
covered with clerks of the public offices, 
and with bankers' and merchants' clerks, 
who are obliged to be at their posts at 
that hour, all exhibiting in their demeanor 
the ease of their hearts. From nine till 
eleven, you see shop-keepers, stock-bro- 
kers, lawyers, and principals in various 
establishments, bustling along vr\\h careful 
and anxious countenances, indicative of 
their various prospects and responsibilities. 
At twelve, saunters forth the man of wealth 
and ease, going to look at his balances, 
orders, or remittances ; or merely to read 
the papers and hear the news ; yet demon- 
strating the folly of wealth by his gouty legs, 
or cautious rheumatic step. Such is the 
routine of the Park, along which no car- 
riages are allowed to pass; but other 
avenues into the metropolis present, 
through every forenoon, besides lines of 
pedestrians, crowded stage-coaches, pri- 

1 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 13 

vate coaches, and chariots, numerous gigs 
and chaises, and many equestrians. 

I amused myself with a calculation of 
the probable number of persons who thus 
every day, between eight and sh, pass to 
and from London within a distance of 
seven miles. In the present route I con- 
cluded the numbers to be something like 
the following, 200 from Pimlico, 300 from 
Chelsea, 200 from the King's Road and 
Sloane Street, 50 from Fulham and Put- 
ney, and 50 from Battersea and Wands- 
worth; making 800 per day. If then, there 
are twenty such avenues to the metropolis, 
it appears that the total of the regular in- 
gress and egress will be 16,000 persons, of 
whom perhaps 8,000 walk, 2,000 arrive 
in public conveyances, and 6,000 ride on 
horseback, or in open or close carriages. 
Such a phenomenon is presented no- where 
«lse in tlie world ; and it never can exist 
except in a city which unites the same 
combined features of population, wealth, 
commerce, and the varied employments 
^hich belong to our own vast metropolis. 



14 A MORNING^S WALK 

I observed with concern that this' Park 
presents a neglected appearance. The 
seats are old and without paint, and 
many vacancies exist in the hnes of the 
trees. The wooden raihng round the centre 
is heavy and decayed, and the appearance 
of every part is unworthy of a metropo- 
litan royal domain, adjoining the constant 
residence of the court. I was also struck 
with the aspect of St. James's Palace in 
ruins ! A private dwelling after a fire would 
have been restored in a few weeks or 
months; but the nominal palace of the 
four preceding sovereigns of England, 
the last of the Stuarts and three first 
of the Guelphs, and the scene of their 
chief grandeur, presents even to the con- 
temporary generation a monument of the 
instability of every human work. The 
door at which Margaret Nicholson made 
her attempt on the life of George the 
Third, and at which the people were used 
to see that monarch enter and depart for 
many years past, is now a chaos of ruins; 
as is that entire suite of apartments which 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 15 

Jed to those drawing-rooms in which the 
Court was accustomed to assemble, till 
within these five years, on birth and gala 
days ! — He w'ould have been deemed a 
false and malignant prophet, who seven 
years ago might have foretold that the pub- 
lic Palace of the Kings of England wx)uld 
so soon become a heap of unrepaired ruins, 
and its splendid chambers '^ the habitation 
of the fowls of the air." Yet, such has 
been the fact, in regard to the eastern 
apartments of this famous Palace ! 

My spirits sunk, and a tear started 
into my eyes, as 1 brought to mind those 
crowds of beauty, rank, and fashion, 
which, till within these few years, used to 
be displayed in the centre Mall of this 
Park on Sunday evenings during the spring 
and summer. How often in my youth had 
I been a delighted spectator of the en- 
chanted and enchanting assemblage ! Here 
used to promenade, for one or two hours 
after dinner, the whole British world of 
gaiety, beauty, and splendour ! Here could 
be seen in one moving mass, extending the 



i6 A morning's WAtK 

whole length of the Mall, five thousand of 
the most lovely women, in this country of 
female beauty, all splendidly attired, and 
accompanied by as many well-dressed men ! 
What a change, I exclaimed, has a few 
years wrought in these once happy and 
cheerful personages 1 — How many of those 
who on this very spot then delighted my 
eyes are now mouldering in the silent 
grave! — And how altered are all their 
persons, and perhaps their fortunes and 
feelings! Alas, that gay and fascinating 
scene no longer continues, and its very 
existence is already forgotten by the new 
generation ! A change of manners has put 
an end to this unparalleled assemblage, to 
this first of metropoUtan pleasures, though 
of itself it was worth any sacrifice. The 
dinner hour of four and five, among the 
great, or would-be great, having shifted ta 
the unhealthy hours of eight or nine, the 
promenade after dinner, in the dinner full- 
dress, is consequently lost. The present 
walk in the Green- Park does not possess 
therefore the attractions of high rank; 



FROM LONTDaN TO KEW. >f 

while' the morning assemblages in Hyde- 
Park and Kensington- Gardens, though gay 
and imposing, have little splendour of dress, 
and lose the effect produced by the pre- 
sence of rank and distinguished character, 
owing to the greater part of the company 
being shut up in carriages. 
J) The modern custom of abandoning 
the metropolis for the ^ea-coast, or the 
country, as soon as the fine weather sets 
in, operates too as another draw^-back from 
the fascination and agreeableness of our 
Sunday promenades. Ancient manners, in 
the capricious whirl of fashion, may how- 
ever again return; and, if the dinner- 
hour should recede back to four, I trust 
the luxury and splendour of this delightful 
Mall will be restored. 
, These Parks may be denominated the 
Lungs of the metropolis, for they are 
essential to the healthful respiration of its 
inhabitants, by contributing to their cheap 
and innocent pleasures. Under a wise 
and benevolent administration, they might 
be made to add still more to the public 
c 



IS A MORN I NG S W ALK '■■ 

happiness, and it would be a suitable 
homage of the government to the people, 
to render these promenades as attractive 
as possible. The two bands of the Guard* 
might be allowed to play in the Malls for 
two hours every evening, between Lady- 
day and Michaelmas, and the number 
and construction of the seats might be 
increased and improved. Such measures, 
would indicate, at least, a desire in the 
governors to contribute to the happiness 
of the governed, and would occasion 
the former to appear to the latter in a 
Iriore grateful character than as mere 
assessors of taxes, and as organs of legal 
coercion. 

At Pimlico, the name of Stafford- Row 
reminded me of the ancient distinction of 
Tart- Hall, once the rival in size and splen- 
dour of its more fortunate neighbour, 
Buckingham- House, and long the depo- 
sitory of the Arundelian Tablets and 
Statues. It faced the Park, on the pre- 
sent scite of James-Street; its garden- 
wall standing where Stafford-Row is now 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. t§ 

built, and the extensive livery-stables being 
once the stables of its residents. 

I turned aside on the left, to view the 
river Tye, or Ty-bourn, which runs from 
the top of Oxford-street, under May- Fair, 
across Piccadilly, south-east of Bucking- 
ham-House, under the pavement of Staf- 
ford-Row, and across Tothill-Fields, into 
the Thames. It is a fact, equally lost, that 
the creeks which run from the Thames, in 
the swamps, opposite Belgrave-Place, once 
joined the canal in St. James's-Park, and, 
passing through White-Hall, formed, by 
their circuit, the ancient isle of St. Peter's* 
Their course has been filled up between 
the wharf of the water-works and the end 
of the canal in St, James's-Park; and the 
Isle of St. Peter's is no longer to be 
traced. It is singular that such a marsh 
should have become the focus of the 
government, jurisprudence, and power, 
of this great empire ! Yet, so it is, the 
offices of Government, the Houses of Par- 
liament, and the Supreme Courts of Law, 
3tand on the lowest ground in or near the 
c ^ 



20 A MORNING*S WALK 

metropolis; the greater part of which is 
still the swamp of Tothill and Milbank- 
Fields; and the whole is exposed to the in- 
undations of land-floods or extraordinary 
tides. A moralist would say, that such 
bulwarks of a nation ought to have been 
seated on a rock — a wit would refer to 
the nature of the soil, the notorious cor-^ 
ruptions of the body-politic — and a vo*^ 
tary of superstition would ascribe the splen- 
did fortunes of the scite to the favour of 
heaven, as announced in the vision to the 
monks who, eleven hundred years since^ 
built Westminster-Abbey, in so unpro- 
mising a situation ! m^^^ ^^r a :^i 

The wall of what are called the Gardens 
of Buckingham House, form one side of 
the main street of Pimlico ; but these gar^ 
dens consist merely of a gravel walk, 
shaded by trees, with a spacious and uri^ 
adorned area in the centre. The whofe 
is the property of Queen Charlotte, and 
is inaccessible to a visit of mere curiosity. ;^ 

The water-works, to the left of the road, 
^pply Pimlico and part of Westminster 



FROM LONDON TO ICEW. 2t 

with water, and, I may add, with smoke, 
of which it emits large volumes, though 
there are so many contrivances for con- 
suming it. It consists simply of a steam 
and forcing engine, not remarkable for 
novelty or ingenuity of construction. Op- 
posite stands the manufactory of the inge- 
nious Bramah, whose locks baffle knavery, 
^d whose condensing engines promise 
such important results to philosophy and 
the mechanic arts. Belgrave-Place, lower 
and upper, proves the avidity of building- 
speculations, which could thus challenge 
the prejudices against the opposite marshesl 
But I was assured by a resident of twenty 
years, that he and his family had enjoyed un- 
interrupted health in Upper Belgrave-Place, 
and that such was the general experience. 
On entering Chelsea, I was naturally 
Jed tQ inquire for the scite of the once gay 
Ranelagh! I passed up the avenue of 
trees, which I remember often to have 
seen blocked up with carriages. At its ex- 
tremity, I looked for the Rotunda and its 
surrounding buildings; but, as I could not 
c 3 



i$ - A ^o R N I no's w a LK, : 

see thera, I concluded, that I had acquired 
but an imperfect idea of the place, in my 
nocturnal visits! 1 went forward, on an 
open space, but still could discern no 
Kanelagh ! At length, on a spot covered 
with nettles, thistles, and other rank weeds, 
I met a working man, who, in answer to 
my inquiries, told me, that he saw I 
was a stranger, or I should have known 
that Ranelagh had been pulled down, and 
that 1 was then standing on the scite of the 
Rotunda ! 

Reader, imagine my feelings, for I can- 
not analyze them! This vile place, I 
exclaimed, the scite of the once-enchant- 
ing Ranelagh ! — It cannot be — the same 
eyes were never destined to see such a 
metamorphosis! All was desolation ! — A 
few inequalities appeared in the ground, 
indicative of some former building, and 
holes filled with muddy water shewed the 
foundation walls— but the rest of the space, 
making about two acres, was covered with 
clusters of tall nettles, thistles, and docks.! 

Qn a more accurate survey, I traqed the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 23 

circular foundation of the Rotunda, and 
at some distance discovered the broken 
arches of some cellars, once filled with the 
choicest wines, but now with dirty water ! 
Further on were marks against a garden 
wall, indicating, that the water-boilers for 
tea and coffee had once been heated there I 
I traced too the scite of the orchestra, 
where I had often been ravished by the 
finest performances of vocal and instru- 
mental music! My imagination brought 
the objects before me ; I fancied I could 
still hear an air of Mara's ; I turned my 
eye aside, and what a contrast appeared !— r 
No glittering lights!— -No brilliant happy 
company ! — No peals of laughter from 
thronged boxes !^ — No chorus of a hun- 
dred instruments and voices! — All was 
death-like stillness 1 Is such, I exclaimed, 
the end of human splendour? — Yes^ 
truly, all is vanity — and here is a striking 
example ! — Here are ruins and desolation, 
even without antiquity ! I am not mourn- 
ing, said I, over the remains of Babylon 
or Carthage — ruins sanctioned by the u^f 



2^ A MORNING'S WALK - 

sparing march of time ! — But here it wa& 
all glory and splendour, even yesterday ! 
Here, but seven years have flown away, 
and I was myself one of three thousand of 
the gayest mortals ever assembled, in one 
of the gayest scenes which the art of man 
could devise — aye, on this very spot — ^yet 
the whole is now changed into the dismal 
scene of desolation before me I — Full of 
such reflections, I cast my eyes eastward, 
when Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's 
Church presented themselves in a con- 
tinued line Ah\ thought I, that line may 
at some distant epoch enable the curious 
antiquary to determine the scite of our 
British Daphne; but I could not avoid 
feeling, that if the pile of Ranelagh and 
its glories have so totally disappeared, ', in 
80 short a season, no human work, even 
yonder colossal specimens of G othic and 
Grecian art, or the great MetropoHs 
itself, can be deemed a standard of locality 
for the guide of distant ages! I moved 
pensively from a spot which exciting such 
solemn and affecting emotions, had dimi- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 23 

iiished the vigour of my frame by exhaust* 
ing my nervous energies. ; .. i 

I soon turned the corner of a street 
which took me out of sight of the space 
on which once stood the gay Ranelagh; 
but it will be long ere I can remove from 
my heart the poignant sensations to which 
its sudden destruction had given rise.* 
" Before me appeared the shops so famed 
Hov Chelsea buns ^ which, for above thirty 
years, I have never passed without filling 
niy pockets. In the original of these 
shops, for even of Chelsea buns there are 
counterfeits, are preserved mementos of 
domestic events, in the first half of the 
past century. The bottle-conjuror is ex- 
hibited in a toy of his own age; portraits 
are also displayed of Duke William and 
other noted personages; a model of a 
British soldier, in the stiff costume of 
the same age ; and some grotto-works, 

* I afterwards learnt in Chelsea, that, latterly, 
Ranelagh did not pay the proprietors five per cent, 
for their capital, and therefore they sold the mate 
rials to the best bidder. 



26 A morning's walk 

serve to indicate the taste of a former 
bwner, and were perhaps intended tp 
rival the neighbouring exhibition at Don 
Saltero's. These buns have afforded a 
competency, and even wealth, to four 
generations of the same family ; and it is 
singular, that their delicate flavour, light- 
ness and richness, have never been sue* 
cessfuUy imitated. The present proprie- 
tor told me, with exultation, that George 
the Second had often been a customer of 
the shop; that the present King, when 
Prince George, and often during his reign^ 
had stopped and purchased his buns; 
and that the Queen, and all the Princes 
tnd Princesses, had been among his oc? 
casional customers. 

A litde further to the west, is a vulgar 
sign of Nell Gwyn^ to whose female sen- 
sibility, and influence on royalty, are as- 
cribed the foundation of the adjoining 
hospital for invalid soldiers. If the mis- 
tresses of Princes always made a similar 
.use of their ascendency, and were to teach 
their royal lovers to respect the duties of 
humanity, and build hospitals for the vie- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 2f 

tims of their idiotic ambition, the world 
would complain less of their extravagancies 
and vices. The excellent hearts of women 
might warrant such an expectation ; but, 
unhappily, this depraved portion of the sex 
generally part with their feminine sensible 
lities, at the same time that they part with 
their character and modesty. Contemn- 
ed, despised, or neglected by the world, 
,tbey become haters of their species, and 
too commonly make use of their power^ 
to avenge on society the personal affronts 
which they are compelled to endure. 

The approach to the hospital was indi* 
cated by the appearance of numbers of mur 
tilated soldiers. It afflicted me, to see young 
men of two or three and twenty, some of 
whom had lost both their arms, and others 
hoih their legs ! I learnt, on enquiry, that 
a few living objects of this description are 
all that now remain of regiments of thei^ 
comrades ! The rest had been killed ia 
battle, or had died of fatigue, or camp dis- 
eases ! The querulous k;Aj/, and for zvhaf, 
§tiU crossed my imagination; but I again 



2S A MORNING'S WALK 

referred such busy doubts to ministers! 
I wzflij/ be wrong ; they c^wwo^ be wrong ! 
No ! they must be right, or such things 
would not be. I confess, notwithstanding, 
that it deeply afflicts me that such things 
are; yet how is the play of human passions 
to be avoided, and how are the mischiefs of 
living errors to be corrected ? Words, 
arguments, morality, and rehgion, at the 
commencement of a quarrel, are exerted 
in vain — the storm of bad passions carries;^ 
for a season, all before it — and after mis- 
chiefs are irretrievably perpetrated, reason 
and experience produce repentance, when, 
alas, it is useless ! Princes and states- 
men are too proud and powerful to permit 
themselves to be instructed, or I would 
advise them on such occasions to doubt 
their imaginary infallibility. Let them 
solemnly doubt whenever some mischief, 
which they cannot repair, must be the con- 
sequence of their decision ; and when that 
decision may, perchancCy arise from some 
mistake ! But I fear this just maxim of Phi- 
losophy will never become a practical rule 



PROM LONDON TO KEW. t9 

of policy strong enough to counteract the 
benefits of extended patronage enjoyed 
during wars by corrupt ministers ; to allay 
the puerile love of glory cherished by 
weak princes ; or to subdue the demo- 
niacal passions and irrational prejudices 
artfully excited by rulers, and too often 
cherished by infatuated nations. 

1 accosted a young man, who had lost 
both arms, and was walking pensively 
between the trees. After some expressions 
of heart-felt commisseration, I enquired bj 
what mischance he had met with so 
untoward a wound? He told me that 
he was in the act of loading his musket, 
when a cannon-ball, passing before him, 
carried off one arm above the elbow, 
and so shattered the other, that it was 
necessary to amputate it. He then 
named some paltry battle where this ac- 
cident befel him ; the issue of which tQ 
either of the contending parties was, as I 
t^coUected, not worth the joint of a little^ 
finger, even if the entire object of the 
jja^rapaign, or war, was worth so much I 
1 



^0 A morning's WALK 

But, said I, you are of course well pro-^ 
vided for in the hospital—" No, (he repli^* 
ed,) there is not room for me at present) 
btit, owing to the severity of my wounds, I 
have a double allowance as an out-pen- 
sioner—yet, (he modestly remarked,) it 
may easily be supposed that even a double 
allowance is not enough for a man who 
cannot help himself in any thing — I cannot 
dress myself, nor even eat or drink, but 
am obliged to be fed like a child; I have 
a poor old mother who does her best for 
me, or"— here the young man's voice 
faultered, and some tears hung on his 
cheeks — for, alas, even these he could 
neither wipe away nor conceal ! Parched 
must have been the eye that would not 
mingle tears with those of this poorfellow, 
on hearing the tale of his unchangeable 
fate ! I found too that my own utterance 
sympathized with his — but, shewing him a 
shilling—- and indicating, by signs, the di^ 
ficulty I felt in putting him in possession of 
it---" here sir, ' ' said he, ^ ^ and God bless 
you;" then^ stooping with his mouth, I 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. ^ 

put it between his lips I — Ah, thought I, 
as I turned from this wretched object, the 
most hard-hearted of those who were con- 
cerned in breaking public treaties, and 
rejecting overtures for peace, would hav^ 
relented, if with my feelings they had 
beheld this single victim of the miUion^ 
that have been imolated, to the calcula- 
tions of their fallible policy* 

I now enquired for veterans — for Fonte*- 
jioy men— Culloden men — Minden menrtTi 
Quebec men ! To some of the two last 
I was introduced; but I found them 
blind, deaf, maimed, and childish ! What 
a sickening picture of human nature, 
whether we consider the causes, objects, 
pr consequences ! Among these hoary 
^nd crippled heroes, I was introduced 
to one who is now in his hundred and 
first vear ! His name is Ardenfair, and 
he is a native of Dorsetshire, He en- 
tered into the Marines about the year 
1744; was in Anson's action, in 1747^ 
^nd in Hawke's, in 17^9. This ve- 
teran sees, talks, hears, and remembers 



^2 A morning's WALK 

well; and it is remarkable, that he per - 
forms the daily drudgery of sweeping the 
gravel-walks, and wheeling water in a bar- 
row 1 One wonders at the ability to per- 
form such labour, in a Centenarian ; that 
such a one should be allowed to be the 
sweeper of the hospital ; and still more, 
that his age had not recommended him to 
the special bounty of the officers. It 
might be expected, that the successive 
fathers of these invalids would, at all- 
times, be exempted from ordinary duties, 
and receive some additional means of 
cheering their extension of life, so long 
beyond the ordinary duration. 

On the north-east border of this hos- 
pital, I was shewn a new erection, near- 
ly of the same size, devoted to the educa- 
tion of the children of soldiers. It is, I 
am told, a very interesting establishment 
to those who view with complacency the 
favourite system of Germanizing the Eng- 
lish people — but how inadequate are all 
such institutions, to repay the obligations 
of any government to tts invalided soldiers, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 33 

if ambition, prejudice, or a love of false 
glory, may, on light grounds, cover the 
earth with bleeding and mangled victims 1 
As each of the veterans in such hospitals 
is often the solitary survivor of a thousand, 
of whom the complement have fallen pre- 
mature victims of the cruel accidents of 
war, the authors ought not to conclude 
that they atone for their crimes by lodging, 
feeding, and cloathing the thousandth man, 
when he is no longer able to §erve their 
purposes ! 

Mankind are, however, so selfish, that 
notTiing but the experience or the immi- 
nent danger of great sufferings seems likely 
to correct the errors of governments and the 
infatuations of people on the subject of 
war. The best security of peace is, conse- 
quently, the danger that the chances of war 
may bring its scourges home to the fire- 
sides of either of the belligerents. The 
fears of nations have, therefore, taught 
them the duty of doing to each other as 
they would be done unto. It forms, how- 
ever, a new epoch in the history of society, 
p 



S4> A morning's walk 

that, owing to their insular situation, the. 
passions of one great people are unchecked 
by this salutary fear ; and public morality, 
in consequence, has stood in need of some 
new stimulus, to relieve the world from th^. 
danger of suffering interminable slaughters. 
What a TEST this new situation afforded to. 
the powers of Christianity ! But for 
twenty years, alas, Christianity has total- 
ly FAILED, and pretended zealots of 
the religion of peace and charity have beea 
even among the most furious abettors of 
implacable war ! 

Opposite the superb terrace of the 
Hospital gardens, stands a tea-drinking 
house, called the Red House ; and about 
fifty yards on the western side of it is 
the place at which Caesar crossed the 
Thames. The reader who has read Stuke- 
ley's reasons for fixing on Chertsey as the 
place of this celebrated passage, may star- 
tle at the positive affirmation here made^ 
Stukeley says that the name of Chertsey 
is all Cagsar; so also is Chelsea, by analo- 
gies equally natural. London, or Lyn-dyn, 

4 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 35 

was then the chief town in South Britain, 
andi would, as matter of course, be the 
place towards which the Britons would re- 
treat and the Romans advance. Land- 
ing near Deal, they would cross the 
river at the ford nearest their place of 
landing, and would not be likely to march 
to Ghertsey, if they could cross at Chelsea; 
and the marshes of the Thames, to which 
the Britons retreated, would correspond 
better with the marshes of Lambeth and 
Battersea than with the low lands near 
Chertsey, where the river is inconsidera- 
ble, and where there is no tide to confer 
strength and military character on the 
marshes. This ford, from the Red House 
to the Bank, near the scite of Ranelagh, 
still remains ; and I have surveyed it more 
than once. At ordinary low water, a shoal 
of gravel, not three feet deep, and broad 
enough for ten men to walk abreast, ex- 
tends across the river, except on the Sur- 
rey side, where it has been deepened by 
raising ballast. Indeed, the causeway from 
the south bank may yet be traced at 
d2 



S6 A morning's walk 

low water; so that this was doubtless a 
ford to the peaceful Britons, across which 
the British army retreated before the Ro- 
mans, and across which they were doubt- 
less followed by Caesar and the Roman 
legions. The event was pregnant with 
such consequences to the fortunes of these 
islands, that the spot deserves the record 
of a monument, which ought to be pre- 
served from age to age, as long as the ve- 
neration due to antiquity is cherished 
among us. Who could then have contem- 
plated that the folly of Roman ambition 
would be the means of introducing arts 
among the semi-barbarous Britons, which, 
in eighteen hundred and forty years, or 
after the lapse of nearly sixty generations, 
would qualify Britain to become mistress 
of Imperial Rome ; while one country 
would become so exalted, and the other be 
so debased, that the event would excite little 
attention, and be deemed but of secondary 
importance? Possibly after another sixty 
generations, the posterity of the savage 
tribes near Sierra Leone, or New Holland, 



>ROM LONDON TO KEW. 3? 

Diay arbitrate the fate of London, or of 
Britain, as an affair of equal indifference ! 
I passed a few minutes in the famous 
Botanic Garden of the Apothecaries* 
Company, founded at Chelsea by Sir 
Hans Sloane. It was the first es-^ 
tablishment of the kind in England, but 
has now for some years been superseded 
in fame and variety by the Royal Gardens 
at Kew. It still however merits notice, 
as containing specimens of all the plants 
recognized in the Materia Mediea, and 
with that view^ is maintained, at a heavy 
expence to the company, for the use of 
medical students. The company's Pro- 
fessor of Botany annually gives lectures 
at this institution to the apprentices of the 
members, and accompanies them in sim- 
pling excursions in the country round the 
metropolis. The statue of the public spirit-^ 
ed founder still adorns the garden; and 
the famous cedars of Lebanon add an 
air of solemn grandeur to the whole, which 
could be conferred by nq other objects 
of nature or art. The conservatories are on 
P3 



38 A jMQi^NIJslG's WALK , 

a grand scale ; and so many interesting 
exotics claimed my notice, that I could 
have passed a week or a month in con- 
templating them. 

In Cheyne Walk, facing the Thames, 
I sought for the Museum and Coffee- 
house of Don Saltero, renowned in the 
swimming exploits of Franklin. Here stands 
the same house, and it is still a place of 
entertainment ; but, about ten years ago, 
the lease expired, when the rarities, pre- 
sented by so many collectors, to the spi- 
rited Barber Salter, (nicknamed, Don Sal- 
tero, ) were sold by public auction. 

A little farther stands the ancient and 
unostentatious palace of the Bishops of 
Winchester, and here has resided the ve- 
nerable Brownlow North, during the thirty- 
three years that he has filled that wealthy 
see; and, a hundred yards to the west, I sur- 
veyed, with becoming interest, the decayed 
premises, now a paper-hanging manu- 
factory, which once was the residence of 
the witty Sir Thomas More, and where, as 
it is recorded, he entertained Erasmus, I 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 59 

was, therefore, on classic ground ; though 
Faulkner, in his amusing History of CheU 
sea, ascribes the residence of the Chan- 
cellor to another situation. The men who 
adorned the era of the revival of learning, 
and, as its patrons, furnished us with wea* 
pons by which to deprive imposition of its 
powers, are well entitled to our esteem ; but 
many of them were entangled in the bridle, 
by whose means more crafty persons had 
long rode on the backs of mankind. Thus 
the friendship and intercourse of sir Thomas 
More and Erasmus were founded on their 
mutual zeal in behalf of those ecclesiastical 
frauds which for so many ages had sub- 
dued every scintillation of reason. They 
were, in their days, among the adherents of 
Popish superstition, what Symmachus had 
been to the Roman polytheists in the age 
of Theodosius-^what Peter the Hermit 
was to the fanatics of the darker ages-— ■ 
and what Burke was to the bigotted poli- 
ticians at the dawn of liberty in France. 
Erasmus; it is true, exposed, with great 
ability much priestcraft and statecraft, yet 
his learning and labours were, for the chief 



40 A morning's walk 

part, devoted to the support of certain ir- 
rational points of theological faith; and 
poor Sir Thomas More lost his head on the 
scaffold rather than aid his less fastidiou3 
sovereign in overturning the spiritual su- 
premacy of the bishops of Rome. We 
may honour the conscientious scruples of 
such men ; but, enabled, as we now are, to 
view their errors at a proper focal distance, 
we are warranted, by their example, in 
drawing the inference that the highest hu- 
man authorities are no tests of truth, and 
that great energies of intellect often serve 
but to strengthen prejudices, and give mis- 
chievous force to aberrations of reason. 

The tomb of Sir Hans Sloane caught my 
eye as 1 passed the corner of the church- 
yard, but not in so good a condition as 
the improved value of his estates might 
warrant one to expect. It is surmounted 
by the mystic symbols of the egg and ser- 
pent ^ in a good style of sculpture. Part 
of the church is precisely what it was 
when the Chancellor More regularly 
formed part of its congregation. 

In crossing the bridge to Battersea, I 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 41 . 

was called upon to pay toll, and was in- 
formed, that this bridge is private property. 
—A bridge across a great river, in a civil" 
ized country, private property !•— Is not 
this monstrouSj thought I, in a country in 
which seventy millions of taxes are coU 
lected per annum, and which has accu- 
mulated a debt of nine hundred millions 
since the accession of the house of Guelph? 
Yet, if bridges remain private property, 
FOR WHAT BENEFIT has SO Hiuch mo- 
ney been expended? Have bridges, or 
hospitals, or schools, or houses for the 
poof, been built with the money? — It 
seems not ! — Have roads been made — ^ 
canals cut — rivers widened — harbours im- 
proved? — No, these are private and inr 
terested speculations! What then, I ex- 
claimed, has been done with it ? 

If this bridge cost twenty thousand 
pounds, one million of the nine hundred 
would have built fifty such bridges! — Yet, 
the war in the Peninsula, for the purpose 
gf setting up the bigotted Ferdinand in 
place of the liberal Joseph, costs the 
pountry three millions per month; or a§ 



42 A morning's walk 

much as would build a hundred and 
fifty fine bridges over the principal ri- 
vers of the empire I Another three mil- 
lions would build a hundred and fifty 
great public hospitals for the incurable 
poor ! A third such sum would make fifty 
thousand miles of good roads 1 And a 
fourth would construct three thousand 
miles of canal, or ten or twelve such as 
the Grand Junction Canal ! That is to 
say, all these substantial benefits might 
be produced to the country by a few weeks' 
cost of the war in the Peninsula; a war 
of such doubtful benefit, either to England, 
to Spain, or to humanity ! 

At the distance of a hundred yards from 
Battersea Bridge, an extensive pile of 
massy brickw^ork, foi^ the manufactory of 
Soap, has recently been erected, at a costy 
it is said, of sixty thousand pounds. I 
w^as told it was inaccessible to strangers, 
and therefore was obliged to content my- 
self with viewing it at a distance. Such 
vast piles are not uncommon in and near 
London; yet how great and certain must 
be the profits of a commodity to warrant 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 43^ 

the expenditure of such large capitals be- 
fore there can be any return ! It might 
seem too that a man possessed of sixty 
thousand pounds, or of as much as, at 
the present value of money, would pur- 
chase for ever the constant labour of from 
above sixty to eighty men, would have 
avoided the hazards of trade. — Yet in 
England it is not so — the avaricious spirit 
of commerce despises all mediocrity — care 
is preferred to enjoyment — and the ends 
of hfe are sacrificed to the means 1 It has 
always been the foible of man not to be 
contented with the good he possesses, but 
to look forward to happiness in the anti- 
cipation of something which he hopes to 
attain. Thus, few congratulate themselves 
on the comforts they enjoy, or consider the 
consequences of losing them; but, ne- 
glectful of blessings in hand, rush forward 
in quest of others which they may never be 
able to obtain, and which, when possessed, 
are again as little enjoyed. 

Poets, divines, and moralists, have as- 
serted thib important truth in all ages; 



44 A morning's walk 

but have failed to cure the delusion, 
though it is at once the cause of the greater 
part of the miseries of individuals, and 
of the mischievous errors of governments. 
Moses guarded against it by new subdivi- 
sions of property in every year of jubilee ; 
but the fraternal regulations of the family 
of Abraham are not conceived to be appli- 
cable to the whole family of man, as 
blended in modern nations ; and statesmen 
and economists now think it better that 
endless competitions should be encouraged, 
and indefinite accumulations tolerated, 
than that industry should be checked by 
any regard to the personal happiness which 
might result from moderated and bound- 
ed wealth. Hence, he that has health and 
strength to labour for his own subsistence 
is not contented unless he can accumulate 
enough to purchase the labour of others — 
and he who has enough to purchase the 
labours of fifty, is miserable if another can 
purchase the labours of sixty — while he 
who can purchase the labours of a thousand 
is still wretched if some other can pur* 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 45 

chase the labours of two thousand. In the 
wilds of Africa and America, men suffer 
every species of misery for want of the 
impulse created by the reward of labour ; 
whereas the suffering is little less, though 
varied in kind, from the gradations created 
in long-established societies by the insa- 
tiable cravings of avarice ! I am aware 
that it is hazardous to discuss a subject 
which probes to the quick the sensibility 
of pride ; yet this is a social problem which 
merits the consideration of all statesmen 
who are anxious to promote the happiness 
of communities ; and it ought not to be 
lost sight of by any future Solon who may 
be called upon to ameliorate the condition 
of his country. 

At a few yards from the toll-gate of 
the bridge, on the Western side of the 
road, stand the work-shops of that emi- 
nent, modest, and persevering mechanic, 
Mr. Brunel; a gentleman of the rarest 
genius, who has effected as much for the 
Mechanic Arts as any man of his time. 
The wonderful apparatus in the dock-yard 



46 A morning's walk 

at Portsmouth, by which he cuts blocks 
for the navy, . with a precision and expe- 
dition that astonish every beholder, se- 
cures him a monument of fame, and echpsea 
all rivalry. In a small building on the left, 
I was attracted by the solemn action of a 
steam-engine of a sixteen-horse or eighty- 
men power, and was ushered into a room, 
where it turned, by means of bands, four 
wheels fringed with fine saws, two of 
eighteen feet in diameter, and two of them 
nine feet. These circular saws were used 
for the purpose of separating veneers, and 
a more perfect operation was never per- 
formed. I beheld planks of mahogany 
and rose-wood sawed into veneers the six- 
teenth of an inch thick, with a precision 
and grandeur of action which really was 
sublime 1 The same power at once turned 
these tremendous saws, and drew their 
work upon them. A large sheet of ve- 
neer, nine or ten feet long by two feet 
broad, was thus separated in about ten 
minutes, so even, and so uniform, that it > 
appeared more like a perfect work of Na- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 4f 

tare than one of human art ! The force: 
of these saws may be conceived when it; 
is known that the large ones revolve sixty- 
five times in a minute • hence, 18 x 3, 14 =' 
56, 5 X 65 gives 3679, feet, or two-thirds 
pf a mile in a minute; whereas, if a saw- 
yer's tool give thirty strokes of three feet 
in a minute, it is but ninety feet, or only 
the fortieth part of the steady force of 
Mn Brunei's saws ! 

In another building, I was shewn his 
manufactory of shoes, which, like the other, 
is full of ingenuity, and^ in regard to 
subdivision of labour, brings this fabric on 
a level with the oft-admired manufactory 
of pins. Every step in it is effected by 
the most elegant and precise machinery; 
whil§ as each operation is performed by; 
one hand, so each shoe passes through 
twenty-five hands, who complete from the 
hide, as supplied by the currier, a hundred- 
pair of strong and well- finished shoes per 
day. All the details are performed by in- 
genious applications of the mechanic pow- 



48 A MORNINGS WALK 

ers, and all the parts are characterized by 
precision, uniformity, and accuracy. As 
each man performs but one step in the 
process, which implies no knowledge of 
what is done by those who go before or 
follow him, so the persons employed are 
not shoemakers, but wounded soldiers, 
who are able to learn their respective du- 
ties in a few hours. The contract at which 
these shoes are delivered to government 
is 6s. 6d. per pair, being at least 2s. less 
than what was paid previously for an un- 
equal and cobbled article. 

While, however, we admire these tri- 
umphs of mechanics, and congratulate 
society on the prospect of enjoying more 
luxuries at less cost of human labour, it 
ought not to be forgotten, that the general 
good in such cases is productive of great par- 
tial evils, against which a paternal govern- 
ment ought to provide. No race of work- 
men being proverbially more industrious 
than shoemakers, it is altogether unrea- 
sonable, that so large a portion of valua- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 49 

ble members of society should be injured 
by improvements which have the ultimate 
effect of benefitting the whole. 

The low price of labour deprives these 
classes of the power of accumulating any 
private fund, on which to subsist while they 
are learning new trades ; it seems there- 
fore incumbent on governments to make 
sufficient provision, from the public stock, 
for all cases of distress, which arise out of 
changes of this kind. If governments were 
benevolent, and vigilant in their benevo- 
lence, no members of the community 
would, under any circumstances, suffer 
from causes which are productive, or sup- 
posed to be productive, of general benefit. 
I qualify the position by the word sup-^ 
posed, because, owing to social monopohes, 
and to the advantages taken of poverty by 
the habits of wealth, the mass of the peo- 
ple are less benefited by the introduction 
of machinery than they ought to be. If a 
population have been drawn or driven from 
agriculture to manufactures, and the lands 
which maintained in humble independance 
£ 



50 A morning's walk 

the ancestors of the manufacturers are, in 
consequence, united into single farms, the 
manufacturers should not be left without 
resource, if their trade fails, or their labour 
is superseded by machinery. Against the 
ill effects of such changes, paternal govern- 
ments should provide means of relief, so 
as to render them as little prejudicial to 
individuals as possible ; and no transitions 
in the productive value of various labour, 
should be allowed to destroy the industri- 
ous part of the population, or force them to 
seek subsistence in foreign climes. It be- 
ing the object of all machinery to save 
human labour, of course society at large 
ought to enjoy the benefit ; and all who 
are in danger of suffering for a benefit to 
be enjoyed by the whole, should be libe- 
rally indemnified out of the common stock. 
Nothing could be more easy than for a 
board of commissioners or arbitrators 
to assess on the public such individual 
losses ; and, in cases of great transitions, 
imposts should be so levied on monopoly 
as to restore the equihbrium of great 



FEOM LONDON TO KEW. 51 

branches of industry. For what but for 
such purposes of equalizing happiness are 
governments constituted and maintained? 
I passed from the premises of Mr. 
Brunei, to the nearly adjoining ones of 
Mr. Hodgson, an intelligent maltster and 
distiller, and the proprietor of the elevated 
horizontal air- mill, which serves as a land- 
mark for many miles round. But his mill, 
its elevated shaft, its vanes, and weather 
or wind boards, curious as they would have 
been on any other scite, lost their inte- 
rest on premises once the residence of 
the illustrious Bolingbroke, and the re- 
sort of the -philosophers of his day. In 
ascending the winding flights of its totter- 
ing galleries, I could not help wondering 
at the caprice of events which had con- 
verted the dwelling of Bolingbroke into 
a malting- house and a mill. This house, 
once sacred to philosophy and poetry, 
long sanctified by the residence of the 
noblest genius of his age, honoured by 
the frequent visits of Pope, and the birth- 
place of the immortal Essay on Man, is 

E 2 ^ 



S2 A mohning's walk 

now appropriated to the lowest uses ! The 
house of Bolingbroke become a windmill ! 
The spot on which the Essay on Man 
was concocted and produced, converted 
into a distillery of pernicious spirits ! Such 
are the lessons of time! Such are the 
means by which an eternal agency sets 
at nought the ephemeral importance of 
man ! But yesterday, this spot was the 
resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment 
of Bolingbroke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, 
Thomson, Mallet, and all the contempo- 
rary genius of England — yet a few whirls 
of the earth round the sun, the change of 
a figure in the date of the year, and the 
groupe have vanished ; while in their place 
I behold hogs and horses, malt-bags and 
barrels, stills and machinery ! 

Alas, said I, to the occupier, and have 
these things become the representatives of 
more human genius than England may 
ever witness on one spot again — have you 
thus satirized the transitory fate of hu- 
manity, — do you thus become a party 
with the bigotted enemies of that philo- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 53 

sophy which was personified in a Boling* 
broke and a Pope ? No, he rejoined, I love 
the name and character of BoHngbroke, 
and I preserve the house as well as I can 
with religious veneration ; I often smoke 
my pipe in Mr. Pope's parlour, and think 
of him with due respect as I walk tlie 
part of the terrace opposite his room. He 
then conducted me to this interesting par- 
lour, which is of brown polished oak, with 
a grate and ornaments of the age of 
George the First; and before its window 
stood the portion of the terrace upon 
which the malt-house had not encroached, 
with the Thames moving majestically under 
its wall. I was on holy ground ! — T did 
not take off my shoes — but I doubtless felt 
what pilgrims feel as they approach the 
temples of Jerusalem, Mecca, or Jagger- 
naut! Of all poems, and of all codes of 
wisdom, I admire the Essay on Man, and 
its doctrines, the most ; and in this room, I 
exclaimed, it was probably planned, dis*- 
cussed, and written ! 

Mr. Hodgson assured me, this had al- 
E 3 



M A morning's walk 

ways been called *' Pope's room," and he 
had no doubt it was the apartment usually 
occupied by that great poet, in his visits 
to his friend Bolingbroke. Other parts of 
the original house remain, and are oc- 
cupied and kept in good order. He 
told me, however, that this is but a wing 
•of the mansion, which extended in Lord 
Bolingbroke's time to the church-yard, and 
is now appropriated to the malting-house 
and its warehouses. 

The church itself is a new and elegant 
structure, but chiefly interesting to me, as 
containing the vault of the St. John fa- 
mily, in which lies the great Lord, at 
\\hose elegant monument, by RoubiUiac, 
I lingered some minutes. 

On inquiring for an ancient inhabitant 
of Battersea, I was introduced to a Mrs. 
Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, 
who told me, she well remembered Lord 
Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out 
every day in his chariot, and had a 
black patch on his cheek, with a large 
wart over his eye-brows. She was then 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 55 

But a girl, but she was taught to look 
upon him with veneration as a great man. 
As, however, he spent little in the place, 
and gave little away, he was not much 
regarded by the people of Battersea. I 
mentioned to her the names of several of 
his contemporaries, but she recollected 
none, except that of Mallet, who, she 
said, she had often seen walking about in 
the village, while he was visiting at Bo- 
lingbroke House. The unassuming dwel- 
ling of this gentlewoman affords another 
proof of the scattered and unrecorded 
wealth of Britain, in works of superior 
art. I found in her retired parlour, a fine 
hisjiorical picture, by Vandyke, for which 
she said she had been offered 5001. but 
which she refused to part with, not less 
from a spirit of independence, than from 
a tasteful estimate of the beauties of the 
picture. 

It was in the warm alluvial plain adjoin- 
ing this village, the very swamp into which 
the Britons retreated before Caesar, that 
the first asparagus was cultivated in Eng* 



56 A morning's WALK 

land. I could learn no particulars of 
this circumstance, but such vast quantities 
are still grown here, that one gardener has 
fifty acres engaged in the production of this 
vegetable, and there are above two hun- 
dred acres of it within a mile of Battersea 
church. 

Proceeding onward between some an- 
cient walls which bound the grounds of 
various market gardeners, I was told that 
here resided the father of Queen Anne 
Boleyn ; but I could not fix any thing with 
precision on the subject, though it appears 
from the monument of Queen Elizabeth, 
in Battersea church, that the Boleyns were 
related to the St. John's. 

A manufacturer of pitch and turpentine 
politely shewed me over his works. I 
trembled as I passed among his combus- 
tible cauldrons, and not without cause, 
for the place had recently been burnt to the 
ground, and it experienced the same fate 
a second time, but a few weeks after my 
visit. May we not hope that the apphcable 
powers of heated gas will enable such ma- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW* Sf 

nufectories to be carried on without the 
inevitable recurrence of such conflagra- 
tions. 

This walk brought me to a large 
distillery, which still bears the name of 
York House, and was a seat of the Arch- 
bishops of York, from the year 1480 to 
its alienation. Here resided Wolsey, as 
Archbishop of York— here Henry VIH* 
first saw Anne Boleyn — and here that 
scene took place which Shakespeare re- 
cords in bis play of Henry VHI; and 
which be described truly, because he wrote 
it for Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne 
Boleyn, within fifty years of the event, 
and must himself have known liviftg wit^ 
nesses of its verity. Hence it becomes 
more than probable, that Sir Thomas Boleyn 
actually resided in the vicinity, and thai 
his daughter was accidentally among the 
guests at that princely entertainment. I 
know it is contended, that this interview 
took place at York House, Whitehall; 
but Shakespeare makes the King come 
by Water; and York House, Battersea, 



BS' A morning's walk 

was beyond all doubt a residence of Wol- 
sey, and is provided with a creek from 
the Thames, for the evident purpose of 
facilitating intercourse by water. Besides, 
the owner informed me, that a few years 
since he had pulled down a superb room, 
called *Hhe ball-room," the pannels of which 
were curiously painted, and the divisions 
silvered. He also stated that the room had 
a dome and a richly ornamented ceiling, 
and that he once saw an ancient print, 
representing the first interview of Henry 
yni. with Anne Boleyn, in which the 
room was portrayed exactly like the one 
that, in modernizing his house, he had 
found it necessary to destroy. 

My polite host took me to his green- 
house, and shewed me a fine specimen 
of that wonder of the second degree of 
organized existence — an American aloe, 
about to put forth its. blossoms. Its vigor- 
ous upright stem was twelve feet high, and 
its head promised a rich profusion of 
jsplendid flowers. It is indeed no fable, 
that thi^ perennial plant grows about a 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 5^ 

hundred years (a few more or less,) before 
it blooms ; and, after yielding its seed, the 
stem withers and dies ! I could not avoid 
being struck with the lesson which this 
centenarian affords to the Pride of man, 
when, on asking its owner, how he knew 
*hat it was a hundred years old, he inform- 
ed me that *'it had been in his possession 
the half of his life," that is, the mighty 
period of five*and-twenty years ! " That 
it had previously been the property of the 
Hon. Mrs. — ," whose name, in spite of 
her honour, is now as lost to fame as she 
iierself is lost to that existence which gave 
rise to any self-importance! That he ^'had 
heard, that, before he?' time, it belonged 

to Lord ," a name which I have also 

forgotten, because it was unnecessary to 
remember it, the common-place peer hav- 
ing also exhausted the measure of his days 
fiince our still-flourishing aloe was in its 
dawn! ''Ah, Sir," said I, ''so the aloe 
Jhas seen out all those who vainly called 
it their property — They have been swept 
^way, generation after generation, yet it 



60 A morning's WAIK 

Still survives a living commentary on their 
utter insignificance; and it laughs at the 
proud assumption of those who called 
themselves its proprietors, but could not 
maintain a property in themselves ! J ust so 
the same creature of yesterday asserts bis 
property in that ancient globe, which he is 
destined to enjoy but an hour ; and he as- 
serts, that all was made for him, though in 
another hour he leaves all and becomes 
again, as to the planet which nurtured 
him, the nonentity of yesterday. 

Pride, the bane of man — I exclaim- 
ed, as I passed the gate — what are its 
claims? Does it arise from fine clothing? 
— let it be remembered that every part has 
been stolen from the lowest of Nature's 
works — that the finest glitter is but a mo- 
dification of the very surface — and that 
the garments which tliis year deck beauty 
and rank, will in the next be rotting on 
the dunghill! Does Pride feed on the 
records of ancestry? — let it visit the fa- 
mily tomb, and examine the bones and 
dust of that ancestry on which it founds 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. §1 

its self-importance ! Is Pride derived 
from titles of distinction? — let it inquire 
who conferred them — for what — and by 
what intrigues — and let it be considered, 
that titles or names confer no inherent 
quality, and do not alter the nature of 
any thing to which they are applied! 
Does an inexperienced girl take a lesson 
of Pride from her looking-glass? — she 
may be cured of her foible, by conceiv- 
ing 10 to be added to the date of the year, 
or by looking on those ten years older than 
herself! Is it an office of power which 
serves as the basis of a lofty and insulting 
Pride ?— let him who fills it remember 
that he is but the puppet of knaves, or 
fools ; and at best but a mere servant of 
the pubHc! Does wealth intoxicate the 
weakness of man ? — let it never be forgot- 
ten that the possession is distinct from the 
possessor, and that the most contemptible 
of the human race have been the ac- 
cumulators of wealth 1 Does the name 
of wisdom, puff up any of its profes- 
sors ? — of such it may truly be said, that 
their wisdom is foolishness — for none truly 



6# A morning's walk 

wise ever felt, in the researches of man; 
any ground of arrogance, while pursuits 
of philosophy serve only to teach humility ! 
— But to what purpose tend such obser^ 
vations? Every man is his own micro- 
cosm, and his case, in his own view, is 
that of no other man ! Pride will always 
find food in self-love, which in spite of 
exhortations, it will devour with ravenous 
appetite ! If men were immortal, how 
intolerable would be existence from the ar- 
rogance and perpetuity of Pride ! While 
this passion infects and misleads the go- 
vernors of the world, the only consolar 
tion in looking on weak princes, wicked 
statesmen, unfeeling lawyers, and mili- 
tary butchers, is that, in the course 
of nature, Death will soon relieve the 
world from the pest of their influence! 
And there are few men who would not 
prefer death as their own fate, and who 
would not hail death as a coaimon blessing, 
rather than live an eternity under the 
dominion of the weak, the crafty, or the 
cruel Proud ! 

The road from York House towards 



FROM LONDON TO EEW. 6S 

Wandsworth, lay across a Plain of unen^ 
<;losed fields, which, before the Thames 
had carved out the boundaries of its 
course, was, 1 have no doubt, generally 
covered with its waters. After the ocean 
left the land, and the hills became the de- 
positaries of the clouds, how many ages 
must have elapsed before the beds of 
rivers were circumscribed as we now see 
them in England. The water always fol- 
lowed the lowest level, but, being of differ- 
ent quantities at different seasons, vegeta- 
tion would flourish on the sides occasion- 
ally covered, and in time would generate 
banks; while the stream itself, by carrying 
off the argillaceous bottom, would add to 
the depth — the two combined causes pro- 
ducing all the phenomena of bounded 
rivers,* The Thames, after heavy rains, 
or thaws of snow, still overflows its banks, 
thereby adding to the vegetable produc- 
tions of its meadows, which, if not con- 

* It is difficult to assign limits to the gradual ef- 
fects of the circuit of the waters by evaporation and 
rain on the creation of land, from the decay of vege- 



€4 A MOKNING'S WALK - 

sumed, or carried away by man, would, 
long ere this, have fixed unalterably the 
limits of its course. The effect of these 
inundations in our days, or in past ages, 
has been to render its banks the fertile 
scite of all those fine garden-grounds which 
supply the metropolis so abundantly wi& 
fruits and vegetables. 

Some large Distilleries, on the banks of 
the river, reminded me of the bad policy 
of governments^ which, sacrificing the end 
to the means, that is, the health and 
fnorals of the people to purposes of reve- 
nue, tolerates and even encourages manuf 
factories so pernicious. I am aware I 
may be answered, that the working classes 

table organizations. All the rain which falls on such 
a country as England^ from two to three feet deep 
per annum, tends to raise the surface of the soil 
with the substances generated by it, which we call 
solids. How small a portion reaches the rivulets, 
and bow little returns to the sea I The considera- 
tion seems at least to justify the notion, that the 
waters desiccate in spite of the encroachments of 
currents, and that all things have proceeded froni 
ihe Mlent agency of water. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 65 

love this poison, and must be gratified; 
and that in 1813 the duty on British 
spirits produced £1,636,504. But I re- 
ply, first, that it is obligatory on good 
governments to protect the people against 
the effects of their vices ; and second, 
that, if the people were not indulged in 
the ruinous habit of gin-drinking, and de- 
stroyed by it in body and mind, they 
would be able to pay a greater sum to 
the revenue from productions of a salu- 
tary nature. Such are the pernicious ef~ 
fects of drunkenness, and the numerous 
miseries created by drinking fermented 
and spirituous liquors, that I have often 
been tempted to consider it as an atone- 
ment for the impostures of Mahomet, that 
he so forcibly prohibited the practice, and 
so far succeeded, that a rigid forbearance 
is observed by his followers, and a Mus- 
selman rendered beastly vicious and dis- 
eased by habits of drunkenness is never 
seen. The doctrines of the New Testa- 
ment and the example of the Founder of 
our religion inculcate an equal degree of 

F 



6& A morning's walk 

abstemiousness, yet how contrary are the 
practices of Christians ! There seems 
indeed, in regard to this vice, to be no 
middle course. Spirituous, and perhaps 
also fermented, liquors, will be abused, 
or they must be wholly prohibited ; be- 
cause the stimulus which they create at 
one time, is sought at another, and the 
oftener it is repeated, the oftener it is 
desired and required ; till at length it be- 
comes necessary to the sense of well-being, 
or apparently essential to the power of 
sustaining the fatigue of life. 

In the middle of these fields I passed a 
handsome house, which appeared to have 
been empty for a considerable time. On 
enquiring the cause of a young woman, 
who passed at the moment ; she told me, 
with an artless countenance, that ^'it 
was haunted,'' I smiled, and asked how 
she knew it. **Ah, Sir," said she, -'its; 
nothing to laugh at- — every body here- 
abouts knows it well enough — such strange 
noises are heard in it, and such lights flit 
about it at midnight." — Have you seen 
3 



FROM LONDON TO ICEW. 6? 

them ? *' No, Sir, but I knows those thut 
have, and rm sure its true." Seeing a 
labouring man at a distance, I enquired 
what he knew of the haunted house, when 
he told me, with a face full of faith, that 
" he knew gentlefolks laughed at such 
things, but seeing was believing — that, pass- 
ing the house one night, he was quite sar- 
tain he had seen a light in one of the rooms, 
and had heard groans — that he got home 
as well as he could, but all the world 
should not induce him to pass the house 
again at that time of the night." '*And 
others," said I, '*have perhaps seen the 
the same?"— ** Aye, by goles, have they," 
exclaimed the fellow with terror in his 
countenance. — I then told him, I would 
with pleasure sit up in the house to see 
these ghosts — ''Rather you than 1, Sir,'" 
said he. — *'Nay, nay," said I, '' I dare 
say now for five shillings you would sit up 
with me !" " Naugh, dang me if I would, 
nor for the best five pounds in the worlds 
much as I wants money 1 1 don't fear man, 
but I am naugh match for the devil I 

¥ 2 

\ 



68 A morning's walk 

— T believes in God, and does nobody any 
harm; and therefore don't think he'd let 
the old-one hurt me : but some main wicked 
ones lived, as I've hard, in that there 
house, so I'll have naught to do with it; 
and dang me if any of 'em shall catch me 
in it after night." ;0 viiaa 

The poor fellow uttered these sentiments 
with such earnestness, that my risible emor 
tions were converted into pity. 1 forebqre, 
however, to argue the point with him 
for many instances of superstition equally 
gross had long convinced me that the unr 
taught and half-taught of my countrymen 
are, in this respect, little superior to the 
savage tribes, whom we pity, in Tartary, 
Africa, and America: yet in this instance 
the man's inference was a consequence of 
his premises, and his error in these it might 
have been deemed heretical to expose. ...i 

The nursery becomes the means of fixing 
similar impressions in the families of the 
most enlightened, and the unformed minds 
of children propagate in public schools 
the stones of their nurses. The lowest 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 6p 

superstition pervades therefore all ranks, 
even of a population so comparatively 
enlightened as that of England ; and, 
being imbibed in infancy and confirmed, 
through the entire period of youth, no im- 
pressions are more strong, or more univer- 
sally operative. The poet and the priest 
either encourage the feeling, or do not 
take any pains to remove it. The agency 
of spirits and abstract principles, is coun- 
tenanced by some of the records of re- 
ligion, and by philosophers and physicians 
in their reasonings about occult causes, 
sympathies, coincidencies, and destinies. 
It is urged in vain, that ghosts and super- 
natural effects are never seen, except by the 
weakest or most ignorant of mankind, in 
ages or states of society when the people 
might be made to believe any thing ; or at 
times so distant, or places so remote, that 
the narrators run no risk of detection or 
exposure. The love of the marvellous, the 
force of early impressions, the craft of many 
persons, and the folly of others, will however 
occasion every village to haVe its haunted 
F 3 



70 A morning's walk 

house for ages to come, in spite of the press, 
and of those discoveries of philosophy which 
are every day narrowing the sphere of 
miracles and prodigies. 

In considering this subject with the at- 
tention that is due to it, it has appeared 
lo me that all the stories of ghosts and 
super, or, un-natural appearances, may be 
feferred to some of the following causes ; 

1. To the augmentation produced by 
fear in any effect on the senses — thus the 
ear of a terrified man will convert the 
smallest noise into the report of thunder, 
or his eye will change the stump of a tree 
into a monster twenty feet high. As the 
senses are furnished for protection, their 
irritability, under the impression of fear, 
is part of their economy, as the means of 
preserving our being; but it is absurd to 
refer back the effects thus augmented, to 
external causes which might be capable of 
producing the augmentation. To such an 
error of the senses and of reasoning, is, 
however, to be referred half the ghosts and 
supernaturals of which we hear in village 
ale-houses, in nurseries and schools. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. fl 

2r To diseased organs of sensation ; as 
an inflamed eye producing the effect of 
flasiies of light in the dark, or fulness of 
blood producing a ringing or singing in 
the ears. Sometimes diseases of the vi- 
sual organs are accompanied by halluci- 
nations of mind ; and persons ill in fevers 
often see successions of figures and ob- 
jects flit before their eyes till the disease has 
been removed. The workings of con- 
science or nervous affections will also pro- 
duce diseases of the senses, and such hal- 
lucinations of mind as to occasion a per- 
son to fancy he sees another, or to be 
haunted by him. But there is nothing 
supernatural in all this; it is sometmies a 
local disease, sometimes an effect of fever, 
sometimes a nervous affection, and some- 
times partial insanity. 

3, To natural causes not understood by 
the parties. Thus, anciently the north- 
ern lights were mistaken for armies fight- 
ing ; meteors and comets for flaming 
swords, portending destruction or pesti* 
lence ; the electrified points of swords to 
the favour of heaven ; the motions of the 



72 A MORNING*S WALK 

planets to attractive effluvia; and all the 
effects of the comixture of the gases to 
benign or diabolical agency, as they liap- 
pened to produce on the parties good or 
evil. So in the Hke manner old houses 
are generally said to be haunted, owing to 
the noises which arise from the cracking 
and yielding of their walls and timbers, 
and from the protection and easy passage 
which in the course of time they afford 
to rats, mice, weasels, &c. whose activity 
in the night-time affords the foundation 
of numerous apprehensions and fancies 
of the credulous. 

4. To spontaneous combustions or de- 
tonations, which produce occasional lights 
and noises, or, under unchanged circum- 
stances, recurring lights and noises, chiefly 
claiming attention in the night. Thus 
houses shut up and unaired are apt, from 
the putrefaction of animal and vegetable 
matter, to generate hydrogen gas, the ac- 
cidental combustion of which by contact 
with p^iosphoric matter, naturally gene- 
rated in the same situation, will produce 
those effects of lights and noises heard in 



FROM LONJ)ON f 6 KEW. 73 

empty bouses. So Church-yards, Churches 
IB which the dead are buried, Cemete- 
ries, and Ruins of old buildings, must fre- 
quenty give out large quantities of these 
gases; and consequently, from exactly si- 
milar causes, they are likely to produce the 
very effects which we witness in the will- 
o'-the-wisp, or in hydrogen gas when 
inflamed during calm weather in marshy 
situations. 

5. To the prevailing belief that effects, 
which cannot readily be accounted for, or 
which are caused by the contact of the 
invisible fluids or media always in action 
in the great laboratory of nature, are pro- 
duced by the agency of spirits or demons; 
which belief, concurring with the unknown 
causes of the effects, and affording a ready 
solution of difficulties, prevents further 
ifiKjuiry, silences reasoning, and tends in 
consequence to sustain the prevailing er- 
rors and superstitions. 

Such are the general causes of o^hosts, 
spirits, charms, miracles, and supernatu- 
ral appearances. They all arise either 
from hallucinations of the mind or senses ; 



f4t A morning's walk 

from the mutual action of the natural, 
though invisible, powers of gaseous and 
ethereal fluids ; from the delusions of ig- 
norance, implicit faith, or the absence of 
all reasoning. 

While occupied in these speculations, 
I arrived at the entrance of the populous^ 
industrious, and opulent village of Wandsr 
worth. A reader in the highlands of 
Scotland, in the mountains of Wales, or 
the wilds of Connaught, will starde when 
he hears of a village containing 5,644 ia*- 
habitants, and 2,020 houses, in which 620 
families are returned as engaged in trade 
and manufactures. Yet, such are the 
overgrown villages round our overgrown 
metropolis. Even in this vicinity, Chelsea 
contains 1 8,262 inhabitants; Fulham 5,903^ 
Clapham 5,083; Hammersmith 7,3^3; 
Kensington 10,886; Brentford, New and 
Old, 7,094; and Richmond 5,219. This 
village of Wandsworth, in truth, is of the 
size of most second-rate towns in distant 
counties, its main street, of compact and 
well-built houses, being half a mile in 
length, with several collateral one^.a quar- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 75 

terof a mile. It also contains, or has in 
its vicinity, many considerable manufac- 
tories, which flourished exceedingly be- 
fore the silly vanity of ambition and mili- 
tary parade led a nation of merchants to 
endeavour to dictate to their foreign cus- 
tomers, and forced them to subsist without 
their commodities \ The manufactories 
of Wandsworth are created or greatly aid- 
ed by the pure stream of the Wandle, and 
by the Surry iron rail-way, which runs 
from Croydon to a spacious and busy 
wharf, on the Thames at this place. They 
consist of dyers, calico-printers, oil-mills, 
iron-founderies, vinegar-works, breweries, 
and distilleries. I found leisure to inspect 
the two or three which were employed; 
and I felt renewed delight on witnessing 
at this place the economy of horse-labour 
on the iron rail-way. Yet a heavy sigh 
escaped me, as 1 thought of the incon- 
ceivable millions which have been spent 
about Malta, four or five of which might 
have been the means of extending double 
lines of iron rail-ways from London to 
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Holyhead, Milford, 



76 A morning's WALK 

Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dover and Ports- 
mouth ! A reward of a single thousand 
would have supplied coaches, and other 
vehicles of various degrees of speed, with 
the best tackle for readily turning out; 
and we might, ere this, have witnessed 
our mail coaches running at the rate of 
ten miles an hour, drawn by a single 
korse, or impelled fifteen miles by Blen- 
kinsop^s steam-engine ! Such would have 
been a legitimate motive for overstep- 
ping the income of a nation, and the 
completion of so great and useful a work 
would have afforded rational grounds for 
public triumph in general jubilees 1 

Wandsworth having been the once- 
famed scene of those humorous popular 
elections of a mayor, or member for 
Garrat; and the subject serving to iU 
lustrate the manners of the times, and 
abounding in original features of cha- 
racter, I collected among some of its elder 
inhabitants a variety of amusing facts and 
documents, relative to the eccentric can- 
didates and their elections. 

Southward of Wandsworth; a road ex^ 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 7f 

tends nearly two miles to the village of 
Lower Tooting, and nearly midway are 
a few houses, or hamlet, by the side of a 
small common, called Garrat, from which 
the road itself is called Garrat Lane. 
Various encroachments on this common 
led to an association of the neighbours 
about three-score years since, when they 
chose a president, or mayor^ to protect 
their rights ; and the time of their first 
election, being the period of a new par- 
liament, it was agreed that the mayor 
^hoqld he re-chosen after every general 
election. Some facetious members of the 
club gave, in a few years, local notoriety 
to this election ; and, when party spirit ran 
high in the days of Wilkes and Liberty y 
ii>iwaisj easy to create an appetite for a 
burlesque election among .the lower or- 
ders of the metropolis. The publicans at 
Wandsworth, Tooting, Battersea, Clap- 
ham, and Vauxhall, made a purse to give 
it character ; and Mr. Foote rendered its 
interest universal, by caUing one of his. 
inimitable farces, ^^ the Mayor of Garrat ,'^ 



7^ A morning's walk 

I have indeed been told, that Foote, Gar- 
rick, and Wilkes, wrote some of the can- 
didates' addresses, for the purpose of in-^ 
structing the people in the corruptions* 
which attend elections to the legislature, 
and of producing those reforms by means 
of ridicule and shame, which are vainly 
expected from solemn appeals of argu-. 
ment and patriotism. 

Not being able to find the members for 
Garrat in Beatson's Political Index, or in 
any of the Court Calendars,. I am obliged 
to depend on tradition for information in 
regard to the eariy history of this famous 
borough. The first mayor of whom I 
could hear was called Sir John Harper. 
He filled the seat during two parliaments^ 
and was, it appears, a man of wit, for, on 
a dead cat being thrown at him on the 
hustings, and a bye-stander exclaiming that 
it stunk worse than a fox. Sir John voci- 
ferated, * that's no wonder, for you see 
it's a/?o//-cat." This noted baronet was, 
in the nretropolis, a retailer of brick-dust; 
and, his Garrat honours being supposed Hy 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. fp 

be a means of improving his trade and the 
condition of his ass, many characters in 
similar occupations were led to aspire to 
the same distinctions. 

He was succeeded by Sir Jeffrey Dun- 
stan, who was returned for three parlia- 
ments, and was the most popular candi- 
date that ever appeared on the Garrat 
hustings. His occupation w^as that of^ 
buying old wigs, once an article of trade 
like that in old clothes, but become obso- 
lete since the full-bottomed and full-dres- 
sed wigs of both sexes went out of fashion. 
Sir Jeffrey usually carried his wig-bag over 
his shoulder, and, to avoid the charge of 
vagrancy, vociferated, as he passed along 
the streets, " old wigs ;" but, having a per- 
son hke Esop, and a countenance and man- 
ner marked by irresistible humour, he never 
appeared without a train of boys, and 
curious persons, .whom he entertained by 
his salHes of wit, shrewd sayings, and 
smart repartees; and from whom, without 
begging, he collected sufficient to maintain 
his dignity of mayor and knight. He was 



80 A morning's walk 

no respecter of persons, and was so se- 
vere in his jokes on the corruptions and 
compromises of power, that, under the 
iron regime of Pitt and Dundas, when 
freedom was treason, and truth was blas- 
phemy, this political punch, or street- 
jester, was prosecuted for using what were 
then called seditious expressions ; and, as 
a caricature on the times, which ought 
never to be forgotten, he was in 1793 
tried, convicted, and imprisoned 1 In 
consequence of this affair, and some 
charges of dishonesty, he lost his popu- 
larity, and, at the general election for 
179^, was ousted by Sir Harry Dimsdale, 
muffin-seller, a man as much deformed as 
himself. Sir Jeffrey could not long sur- 
vive his fall; but, in death as in life, he 
proved a satire on the vices of the proud, 
for in 1797 he died, like Alexander the 
(jfeat, and many other heroes renowned in 
the historic page — of suffocation from ex- 
cessive drinking ! 

Sir Harry Dimsdale dying also before 
the next general election, and no can- 



PROM LONDON TO KEW. 81' 

didate starting of sufficient originality of 
character, and, what was still more fatal, 
the victuallers having failed to raise a 
PUBLIC PURSE, which was as stimulating 
a bait to the independent candidates for 
Garrat, as it is to the independent candi- 
dates for a certain assembly ; the borougb 
of Garrat has since remained vacant, and 
the populace have been without a ^r^e^^- 
ed political buffoon. 

None but those who have seen a Lon- 
don mob on any great holiday can form 
a just idea of these elections. On seve- 
ral occasions, a hundred thousand per- 
sons, half of them in carts, in hackneyt 
coaches, and on horse and ass-back, co- 
vered the various roads from London, 
and choaked up all the approaches to the 
place of election. At the two last elec- 
tions, I was told, that the road within a 
mile of Wandsworth was so blocked up by 
vehicles, that none could move backward 
or forward during many hours ; and that 
the candidates, dressed like chimney- 
sweepers oa May-day, or in the mock- 
o 



S2 A morning's walk 

fashion of the period, were brought to 
the hustings in the carriages of peer^y 
drawn by six_ horses, the owners them- 
selves condescending to become their 
drivers I 

Whether the effect of inculcating use- 
ful principles by means of these mock poli- 
ticians, was compensated by the ridicule 
thrown on the sacred exertions of patriot* 
ism, may perhaps be doubted. These 
elections served, however, to keep alive 
the feelings of the people on public ques* 
tions, and tended to increase those dis- 
cussions and enquiries which support the 
arterial circulation of the body politic. 
The deadly plague of despotism, and the 
equally fatal disease of ministerial cor-- 
ruption, find victims of their influence 
only among people who are devoid of 
moral energies and public spirit, and 
whose stagnant and torpid condition gene- 
rates morbid dispositions that invite, rather 
than resist, the attacks of any public 
enemy. 

I am a friend, therefore, on principle, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. »3 

to the bustle and tumult of popular elec- 
tions. They are the flint and steel, the 
animating fiiction, the galvanic energy, oi 
society. Virtue alone can face them. 
Vice dreads them as it dreads the light. 
With uncourtly hands, they tear the mask 
from Hypocrisy ; they arraign at the 
bar of public opinion, political Culprits, 
amenable to no other tribunal ; and they 
probe to the quick, the seared consciences 
pf Peculators and Oppressors. If the 
sycophants of courts, and the sophistical 
apologists of arbitrary power, should craf- 
tily urge that the people are sometimes 
misled by fraud and falsehood, and there- 
fore unable to distinguish between patriots 
and plunderers, we should not forget that 
SDCcasional errors are misfortunes which do 
not abrogate general rights ; and that po 
Ipular elections are never adopted in well- 
trained despotisms, as part of the ma- 
chinery of the state, calculated to subjugate 
the bodies and minds of their slaves. 
Do we hear of the suffrages of the people 
among the Turks, the Russians, the Moors, 
g2 



^^ A M011NING*S WALK 

or the Algerines ? Rather, as the means 
of eliciting the public voice, and of ex- 
citing enquiry, are they not of all despo- 
tisms, the bane ; and of all usurpations and ^ 
abuses of power, the terror; while, by 
generating that pubhc spirit which is the 
animating soul of freedom, they serve as 
tests of dauntless pubhc virtue, afford 
the last and the best hope of patriotism, 
and constitute national schools, in which 
impressive Lessoris of Liberty are taught 
to the whole people. 

In my walk towards Garrat, my atten- 
tion was attracted by a pretty mansion, 
which pleased my eye, though the mono- 
tonous blows of its adjoining oil-mill an«- 
noyed my ear. The owner, Mr. Were, 
politely exhibited its details; and more 
mechanical ingenuity than is here display- 
ed could not well be applied to aid the 
simple operation of extracting oil from 
linseed. A magnificent water-wheel, of 
thirty feet, turns a main shaft, which gives 
motion to-a pair of vertical stones, raises 
the driving-beams, and turns a band 



FRQIW LONDON TO KEW* 85 

which carries the seed, in small buckets, 
from the floor to the hopper. The shock 
on the entire nervous system, produced by 
the noise of the driving-beams as they fall 
on the wedges, is not to be described. 
The sense of hearing for the time is 
wholly destroyed, and the powers of voice 
and articulation are vainly exerted. The 
noise is oppressive, though a rebound, 
comparatively tuneful, takes place, till the 
wedge is driven home ; but afterwards, the 
blows fall dead, and produce a painful 
janr on the nerves, which affected me for 
several hours with a sense of general las- 
situde. The gardens of this sensible ma- 
nufacturer evince considerable taste, and 
produce that agreeable effect which always 
results from the combination of comfort, 
rural beauty, and useful industry. A 
manufactory in a picturesque situation, 
surrounded by the usual characters of 
opulence, is one of the most pleasing 
features of an English landscape, com- 
bining whatever we most admire in nature 
and art, with moral associations, that pro- 
g3 



8^ A morning's walk 

duce in the mind a sentiment of perfect 
satisfaction. 

Nearer to Wandsworth, Homer would 
have found imagery by which to improve 
bis description of the abode of Vulcan; 
for how feeble must have been the ob- 
jects of this nature, which a poet could 
view on the shores of the Mediterranean/, 
compared with the gigantic machinery of 
an English iron-foundry. The applica- 
tion of the expansive powers of nature, 
as a moving agent in the steam-engine : 
the means of generating and concentrating 
heat in our furnaces ; the melting of iron ; 
the casting of the fluid; the colossal 
powers of the welding hammer, the head 
of which, though a ton in weight, gives a 
stroke per second ; the power of shears, 
which cut thick bars of iron like threads; 
the drawing out of iron hoops by means 
of rollers, and the boring of cannon, are 
the "every- day business of one of these 
manufactories, all of which I saw going 
on at the same instant, without bustle or 
effort. Iron, the most universal, the most 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 87 

durable, and most economical of the 
metals, is thus made subservient to the 
wants of man, at a time when his impro- 
vidence in the use of timber has rendered 
some substitute necessary. New appli- 
cations are daily made of it, and a new 
face is, by its means, promised to society. 
Used as sleepers and bond-pieces in the 
brick-work of houses, it will extend their 
duration through many ages; and, as 
joists, rafters, and plates for roofs, it will 
defy the assaults of storms and the ravages 
of fire. As railing for gardens, parks, 
and other enclosures, it combines elegance 
with security. As pipes for gas, or for 
water, it is justly preferred to lead or 
wood. As frames for windows, it unites 
lightness with durability. As bedsteads, 
it excludes vermin; and, as square frames 
for bridge-pieces, it presents the triumph 
of human art. Yet these are only a few 
of its modern applications, for they are 
illimitable, and a description of the manu- 
factories of Birmingham and Sheffield, of 
which iron is the staple, would fill a 



9& A morning's walk 

volume. On my remarking to the pro- 
prietor of this foundry, that the men 
Blinded themselves with the fire like sa- 
lamanders ; he told me, that, to supply 
the excessive evaporation, some of them 
found it necessary to drink eight or tea 
pots of porter per day. Many of them 
presented in their brawny arms, which 
were rendered so by the constant exertioft 
of those limbs; and in their bronzed coun- 
tenances, caused by the action of the 
heat and the effluvia, striking pictures of 
true sons of Vulcan ; and, except in oc- 
casional accidents, they enjoyed, I was 
told, general good health, and often at- 
tained a hearty old agfe. 

In regard to these manufactories, I 
karnt, that the application of machinery 
in them saves two-thirds of the manual 
labour ; or, in other words, that a triple 
effect is produced by the union of a given 
number of hands, with appropriate ma- 
chinery. In this we rejoice; but, from 
our past experience of the effects, I ask 
emphatically, Why ? If in this age the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 89 

same necessaries and luxuries are pro- 
duced by one- third of the manual labour 
which was required in the age of Eliza- 
beth, it is evident that the English of 
this day ought to subsist as well by work- 
ing not more than half as much as in 
the days of Elizabeth, or our boasted 
machinery is useless. By making the 
wind, the water, the elastic fluids, and new 
combinations of the mechanical powers, 
perform our labour, we compel Nature to 
work for us ; and, though in a northern 
latitude, we place ourselves in the very 
situation of the inhabitants of the Tro- 
pics, where the ever- bountiful chmate feeds 
the people with slight exertions of manual 
labour. Yet, is such the effect ? Enquire 
of our labouring classes, who toil for in- 
adequate subsistence from twelve to fif- 
teen hours per day ! Does not some 
malevolent influence then deprive us of 
the advantages of our ingenuity ? Doubt- 
less it is so; and the Demon of War^ 
who has so long hovered over this deluded 
nation, and whose calls for blood and trea- 



go A morning's walk 

sure are so insatiable^ is the sufficient cause. 
But on this subject the voice of reason 
and humanity have been raised so aftert, 
that it seems to be as useless as the ap- 
peals of a mother, standing on the sea- 
shore, to the tempest which is destroying 
her children in a visible wreck. Infa-i 
tuated nations are like exhilarated dram- 
drinkers ; they ridicule and despise warn- 
ing, till a palsy or apoplexy renders them 
a proverb among their neighbours, and 
brings on a death-bed, but unavailing, 
repentance ! 

I had not time to view any of the other 
ingenious and valuable manufactories of 
this place; but, perceiving that the ma- 
nufacturers formed a numerous and opu- 
lent class of inhabitants, and that there 
were many elegant mansions of families 
living on their fortunes, besides many 
respectable shop-keepers, I was induced 
to seek information in regard to the state 
of society and mutual intercourse in a 
country-town possessing such capabilities. 
On enquiring at the principal Inn, l 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 91 

found that a subscription-assembly was 
held six times in the year, at an ex- 
pence of three guineas, but it had only 
thirty-two subscribers, though within a 
mile there then were a hundred families 
that kept their own carriages, and another 
hundred qualified by habit and manners 
to give and receive pleasure at such an 
entertainment I learnt, however, that 
this solitary establishment, the only means 
by which the inhabitants can practically 
feel that they do not live in a wilderness, 
is poisoned at its source by a strict ballot, 
which places the privilege of admission 
in the discretion of any two or thj^eo;; 
narrow-minded and impertinent persons, 
who may have become directors. Of 
course, no man of sense or delicacy would 
ever expose himself and family to the 
insult of being black- balled^j and these 
institutions, which are calculated to pro- 
mote general happiness, become, in con- 
sequence, a source of mortification to the 
majority of a neighbourhood, and of petty 
and inadequate gratification to those 

2 



f 
l>>^^ 



§Z A morning's walk 

whose inanity of character, or obsequious- 
ness of manners, have rendered them to- 
lerable to the family, or small junto, who 
usually take it upon themselves to govern 
such assemblies. 

Some observations on this subject merit 
record, because happiness is the end of 
life, the proper business of study, and the 
true object of all disquisition ; and there 
is no point in which families are rendered 
more uncomfortable, and in which the 
spirit of caprice and tyranny is more 
successfully exerted, than in the institu- 
tion and conduct of country assembhes; 
while, at the same time, nothing would 
be easier than to render them a means 
of happiness to all who are capable of it. 
It is evident, that many persons, by habit 
and education, are ill-adapted to take part 
in the polite amusements of an assembly; 
that some men are odious by their vices ; 
and that many females of equivocal cha- 
racter ought not to be allowed to mix 
with the virtuous part of the sex; conse^ 
quently, every inhabitant of a district ought 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. ^S 

not to be admitted to join in amusements 
which imply the contact of dancing and 
cards. It is also too certain, that a con- 
temptible and unworthy pride often accom- 
panies 4:he wealth which assumes an as- 
cendancy in assemblies ; that scaiidal and 
falsehood more commonly govern the de- 
cisions of society than charity and truth; 
and that the base passions of envy and 
malice mix themselves more or less with 
all human conduct. What then is the 
security against the intrusion of the vici- 
ous? A ballot, in which one black-ball 
in ten, or sometimes two or three among 
the whole body of the subscribers, operate 
as an exclusion, that is to say, are a means 
of setting a mark on a family, and placing 
it at issue with a considerable portion of 
the neighbourhood ! What a pernicious 
engine for the gratification of pride, scan- 
dal, envy, and malice ! What an inqui- 
sition of the few bad by which to torment 
the many good ! What a dagger in the 
hands of tolerated assassins ! In short, 
what a perversion of reason, what a dis- 



$4 A morning's walk 

ease in the very bosom of society, what a 
lurking demon stationed at the threshold 
of every happy family, to blast and thwart 
the modest ambition of its amiable mem- 
bers ! Doubtless, in and near .Wands- 
worth, a mistaken constitution in the 
system of ballot renders a hundred fami- 
lies uncomfortable, while the thirty-two 
elect are not benefitted. The principle, 
therefore, is erroneous, and exclusion 
should result only from a majority/ of 
black-balls. For the honour of our na- 
ture we may presume, that a majority of 
men are not governed by bad passions; 
at least, our only security consists in its 
not being so: it may, therefore, be pre- 
sumed, that a majority of black-balls would 
be fair evidence of a fault in the candidate 
rather than in the electors. Perhaps, a 
simple majority ought to be decisive ; but, 
to guard against the intrigues of bad pas^ 
sions, the decision would be more just if 
two-thirds w ere required to be black-balls ; 
for it may be safely trusted, that no third 
of a respectable assembly will ever vote 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. §5 

for the adoiission of a character truly ob- 
jectionable. 

^^But am I to mix," exclaims one of 
my starch female readers, *' with members 
whom I do not like, or give up my sub- 
scription to the assembly." ^* Unques- 
tionably, Madam; your dislikes ought not 
to be gratified — your hatred and prejudice 
are odious vices, which you ought to keep 
at home, where you can invite whomso- 
ever you like, and reject those whom you 
dislike ; but a public assembly is the pro^ 
perty of society, whose happiness ought 
to be consulted in its arrangements, and 
which ought to be governed by general 
rules of morals and justice, and not by 
the bad passions of the unworthy few." 

After all, is it not matter of wonder, 
that only once a month, during the win- 
ter, any congregation of part of the inha- 
bitants of Wandsworth takes place for pur- 
poses of amusement? Yet, is not this 
the general characteristic of English so- 
ciety, from the Orkneys to the Land's- 
End ? The inhabitants of populous dis- 



^6 A morning's walk 

tricts or towns in Britain might as well, 
in regard to their intercourse with the com- 
munity, live in the wilds of America or 
Siberia ! 'Tis true, they assemble on Sun- 
days at church or chapel when their devo- 
tions forbid the gaiety which ought to vary 
the grave pursuits of life — and they meet 
also in the common receptacle of mor- 
tality in the parish cemetery — but they sel- 
dom oi^ never meet to cheer life's dull 
round, to soften asperities, to remove 
formal distances, to cultivate friendships, 
and to perform social and neighbourly 
offices of courtesy and kindness. Why 
is there not, in every populous vicinage 
or adjoining to every town, a pubHc gra- 
velled, or paved, Walk, provided with co- 
vered and open seats, to which, from 
spring to autumn, the inhabitants might 
resort, and promenade between the hours 
of six- and eight or nine. Might not such 
walk be rendered attractive, during those 
hours, by being provided with two, three, 
or four Musicians to play marches and 
lively airs, and increase the hilarity of 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. ^J 

the scene ? A district would thus become 
social, and the inhabitants would know 
each other; though the proud need not mix 
with the humble more than would be 
agreeable. Such an arrangement would reri- 
der less necessary those costly and vitia- 
ting excursions to watering-places, which 
are made in quest of similar gratifications ; 
and they would render two hours of every 
twenty-four a period of enjoyment to ten^ 
of thousands, who now enjoy no relief 
from gloomy cares, except at the public- 
house, the card-table, or the backgam- 
mon-board. It would, moreover, be 
a cheap pleasure, supported by a. rat^ 
of half-a-guinpa per house per annum^ 
while it would afford at least 1000 hours 
of innocent and healthful gratification to 
their famihes. To enumerate all the di- 
rect and collateral advantages must be 
unnecessary, because it would be difficult 
to imagine a single objection that could 
weigh against the obvious benefits. So- 
ciety would then become a social state; 
and it would no longer be problematical, 

H 



^8 A morning's walk 

whether a noari in a wilderness, separated 
from the bad passions of his fellow-men^ 
were not happier than he who is surround- 
ed by them, but who has no counterpoise 
in their intercourse and afifections ? May 
these considerations sink deep into the 
minds of ' * Men of Ross, "wherever they ar« 
to be found; and, if acted upon as thej 
merit, I may perhaps live to form one of 
many happy groupes of village or parish 
promenades, which owe their origin to 
these observations. 

As an infallible test of the intellectual 
cultivation and social dispositions of 
any town, I enquired of two dealers 
in books, whether there existed aiiiy 
Book-club, but was answered in the nega- 
tive. A small collection of those beguilers 
of time, or cordials for ennuiy called No^ 
vels, constitute a circulating library; and, 
judging from the condition of the volumesi 
this degree of literary taste is general 
among the females of this village. Far 
be it from me to depreciate the negative 
merits of novel-reading, bec^use^^tboe Vas^ 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. §9 

jority tend to improve the heart, to 
direct the sensibihties arid sympathies of 
the liiind, and to create many liberal and 
rational reflections, to which without Novels 
their readers might have been total stran- 
gers. This is no small praise of any pur- 
suit ; yet the same and still higher purposes 
would be attained, if real, rather than fic- 
titious, life were the object of study ; if we 
enquired after man as he was, is, and evei: 
will be, instead of satisfying ourselves with 
the contemplation of him in the false co^ 
louritigs, distorted positions, and earica*- 
ture resemblances, of many works pf 
fiction. There can, however, exist iio 
moral agertt more effective than a good 
novel, wherein Attention is rivetted by 
the author's fancy, Taste is fascinated by his 
style, and Errors, Prejudices, and Follies 
of the hour are corrected by his pow- 
ers of ridicule or argument. To instruct 
as well as to amuse- — to speak great truths 
in epigrams— to exhibit the substance, of 
sermons without sermonizing — to be wise 
without appearing so— to make philoso- 



100 A morning's walk 

phers trifle, and triflers philosophize— to 
exhibit precept in action — and to surprise 
the judgment through the medium of the 
passions and the love of the marvellous, 
—ought to be the purposes of those who 
cultivate this interesting branch of literary 
composition. 

Yet, unsociable as is "Wandsworth, it is 
in that respect like all the villages round 
London. Gay and splendid as they ap- 
pear to the summer visitor, nothing can 
be more dull and monotonous than the 
lives of their constant residents. Made 
up of the mushroom aristocracy of trade, 
whose rank, in its first generation, affords 
np palpable ground of introduction — of 
pride, whose importance, founded on the 
chances of yesterday, is fed on its self- 
sufficiency— of individuals whose conse- 
quence grows neither out of manners, in- 
tellectual endowments, superior taste, nor 
polished connections — and of inhabitants of 
a metropolis, among whom shyness of in- 
tercourse is necessary as a security against 
imposture^ — it is not to be wondered that 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 101 

most of the showy mansions in these vil- 
lages are points of repulsion rather thaa 
of attraction. It must, however, be con- 
ceded, that many of these famihes are 
hospitable, charitable, sociable, and anxi^ 
ous to be agreeable — qualities which would 
serve as the basis of systems of more liberal 
intercourse, if properly directed, and if 
cherished in such establishments as book- 
clubs, periodical assemblies, and evening 
promenades. Nor should it be forgotten 
that mapy of jthe proprietors of these 
mansions consider them as mere retreats 
from the craft and selfish jargon of the 
world, in which, to enjoy the contrast 
afforded by the simplicity of nature, they 
court Solitude, for its own sake, during 
their temporary residence from evening till 
morning, and from Saturday till Monday. 

In a Village once famous for its manufac- 
tories, which, as the effect of the wicked 
Policy that involved the country in twen- 
ty J years' warfare, have lost their powers 
of giving employment to the population 
whom Jhey had drawn together, I wa3 
H 3 



102 A morning's WALK 

naturally led to inquire .the condition of 
these helpless victims of deluded and de- 
luding statesmen. What an affecting topic 
for the contemplation of Sensibility ! How- 
painful the condition of Poverty, con- 
trasted with that of Wealth ; yet how 
closely are they allied, and how adven- 
titiously separated ! The Rich solace 
themselves in a fancied exemption froni 
the miseries and ignominy which: attach 
to the Poor, though their daily experi- 
ence of the caprice of fortune ought to 
teach thera, that, while they have the 
power, it would be wiser to diminish the 
contrast by ameliorating the condition of 
Poverty I How glorious is the spectacle 
afforded by the contrast of civilized so- 
ciety, with the wretched condition of sa- 
vages, though that justly admired civiliza- 
tion is often but a result of artifices that 
create the distinctions of rich and poor ! 
What a gulph between the ancient Britons 
in the social equality of their woods and 
caverns, and the favoured English in their 
luxurious cities and magnificeat palaces ! 



FHOM LONDON TO KEW. 103 

Yet, alas ! wealth and splendour and great* 
ness are such only by contrast !— Wherever 
there are rich there must be poor — wherever 
there is splendour there must be misery — • 
and wherever there are masters there must 
be servants. These conditions of men 
in society are like the electrical power in 
nature, which never indicates its positive 
qualities without creating corresponding 
negations; and which, when equally dif- 
fused, exhibits no phenomena* If then 
men are rich merely because they have ab- 
stracted or absorbed the w^ealth of others, 
their obligations, as moral and sympathe- 
tic creatures towards those by whose abase- 
ment they are exalted, can require no 
formal proof. The kws may allow, and 
the arrangements of society may require, 
as a condition of civilization, that the rich 
should enjoy their ascendency ; but it jg 
neither just, nor wise, nor decent, nor 
humane, nor necessary, that the poor 
should be deprived of benefits which ought 
to result to the whole family of man, from 
the triumphs of Art over Nature. All are 



1 04 A M OR N I NG's W ALK - 

bound cheerfully to concede to superiority 
in virtue and intellect, those advantages 
which are the result of virtuous and intel- 
lectual exertions ; but, as common descend-- 
ants of the once-equal Britons, the lowest 
are warranted in claiming, as matter of 
right, to be as well fed and as comfortably 
provided for, on performing, or on evinc- 
ing a willingness to perform, the duties of 
their stations, as their equal ancestors 
among the Britons, or society at large can- 
not be said to have profitted by our boasted 
civiHzation. To adjust these intricate re* 
lations, so that all virtue may partake in 
its sphere of the gifts of nature, augment- 
ed by the ingenuity of man, is the arduous, 
tut interesting, task of wise legislation. 
It would not be reasonable to expect, that 
every case should be met, and every exigen- 
cy anticipated, by adequate arrangements;, 
but it is the duty of power, in whomsoever 
it is placed, to exert itself with unremitting 
anxiety, so as in the arrangements of man 
^p approximate to the dispositions of na-. 
ture, whicb are always marked by ine_3^^. 



1 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 105 

haustible abundance, by appropriate be- 
nevolence, and by means commensurate 
to suitable and desirable ends. 

Under the influence of such reasoning, 
I made a variety of enquiries between 
Battersea and Wandsworth, relative to 
the condition of the poor. I learnt with 
grief that the payment of day-labourers 
varies from Qs, 6d. to \s. 6d, per day, or on 
an average is not more than 12^. per week ; 
of women from Is, 3d, to 1*. or about 6s. 
per week; and of children from Qd. to 6d. 
or 4*. per week; though, for the two last 
classes there is sufficient employment for 
only half the year. A poor man, who 
had a wife and three children to maintain 
on I As. per week, told me, that for many 
months he and his family had been stran- 
gers to meat, cheese, butter, or beer — that 
bread, potatoes, nettles, turnips, carrots, 
and onions^ with a little salt, constituted 
jthe whole of their food — that during the 
winter months he was obliged to rely on 
the parish — that in case of sickness he and 
his children had no resource besides the 



105 A morning's walk 

workhouse — and that, though it had pleased 
God to take two of his children, it was 
better they should go to heaven than con- 
tinue in this wicked and troublesome 
world. *' But I don't think," said he, '' the 
gentlefolk saves much by running down 
we poor so nation hard, for we are oMi-» 
gated to get it on the parish, which they 
pay; so it's all one; though it grieves a 
poor man, as one may say, to apply to 
them overseers, and to have no hope but 
the workhouse at last." 

I agree with this humble Economist 
that it seems to be as ungenerous as ira* 
politic to throw on the poor's rates a bur- 
then which ought to be borne by those 
who profit from the labour thus inade- 
quately remunerated. It could not, and 
ought not, to be difficult to fix a minimuna 
(not a maximum) on twelve hours' labour 
per day, such as should be sufficient to 
support an average-sized family. Suppose 
for bread and flour 6s. were allowed ; for 
meat, cheese, butter, milk, and beer, 4^.; for 
potatoes, &c, Qs. candles, soap, and coals, 
1 



FROM LONDON TO KEW, 107 

^s, cloathing 3^. 6d. house-rent 2,y. 6d, sun- 
dries \s, — total 2U. Here is nothing 
superfluous, nothing but what appertain^ 
to the earHest stages of civilization, and 
what every well- arranged society ought to 
be able to give in return for manual labour 
of the lowest kind. With inferior means 
the labourer must suffer the obloquy of 
being remunerated from the parish rates, 
to which all are forced to contribute as 
fully as though the employer paid the 
fair value of the labour in the first in- 
stance, and the amount were assessed on 
the price of his commodity, instead of 
being assessed in the form of poor's 
rates. 

It being, however, they2?^ownVe system 
to pay the difference between what the 
labourer receives, and what he ought to 
receive, through the medium of the work- 
house or parish officers, I anxiously di- 
rected my way to Wandsworth Work- 
house, to examine whether it was an asy- 
lum of comfort or a place of punishment ? 
On my entrance I found the hall filled 
with a crowd of poor persons, then ap- 



108 A MORNING S WALK 

*^lying to receive a weekly stipend from 
the overseers, who, with other parish- 
officers, were assembled in an adjoining 
apartment. Many women with infants at 
their breasts, and other children clinging 
round their knees, presented interesting 
subjects for poets and painters. Every 
feeling of the human heart, though in the 
garb of rags, and bearing the aspect of 
misery, evidently filled the various indi^ 
viduals composing this groupe. I pressed 
forward to the room, where I found the 
overseers were sitting at a table, covered 
with bank-tokens and other silver for dis^ 
tribution. They received me politely, and, 
on learning my wish to view the interior, 
directed the matron to accompany rae. 
The manners and countenances of ttieso 
Overseers flatly contradicted the prejudices 
which are usually entertained against per»^ 
sons fining the office; and it gratified me 
to hear several of the poor, whose cha^ 
racteristic is said to be discontent, exclaim, 
*^ God bless 'em, they're noble gentlemen." 
The matron conducted me into a spa- 
cious yard; round which are suites of roomsi 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 109 

built in the manner of alms-houses, a plan 
which cannot be too much commended, 
because it sufficiently detaches the tenants 
of each, secures to every set their peculiar 
comforts, and may be rendered the means 
of separating virtue from vice. In the 
middle of the area stand the offices and 
kitchen, dividing it into two yards, one 
for the men, and the other for the 
women. The whole had been recently 
white- washed, and, but for the name of 
work-house, and certain restraints on their 
habits and liberty, it seemed calculated to 
secure the comfort of its inmates. 

The matron took me into several of the 
men's rooms, and here I found tottering 
grey hairs, crippled youth, inveterately 
diseased of all ages, and artizans destitute 
of employment. Six or eight were in a 
room, though I was informed they slept 
for the most part but one in a bed. A 
fine young girl about twelve years old, 
who had slipped out of the women's yard, 
was seated by the side of her father, an 
interesting looking artizan, whose trade 



110 A morning's WALK 

had ceased to afford him eraployment. 
This, I found, was contrary to the disci- 
pline of the house, and the matron chid 
the girl for coming there; *^ however,.'' 
said she to me in an under-tone, witl^ 
great good nature — **one can't blame a 
child . for getting to her father, nor the 
father for encouraging his child to come 
over to him." — ^'No, madam," said I^ 
*'and no one can blame you for granting 
such an indulgence, while all must admire 
the goodness of heart which dictates that 
sentiment." Would to God, thpught Ij 
that all workhouses were governed by ma^ 
trons as capable of sympathizing with the 
feelings of the unfortunate inmates; and 
that all those who Embitter poverty by 
directing the separation of parents from 
their children, and husbands from their 
wives, may themselves become the object 
of their own law ! 

My guide now led me to a room where 
lived a man, his wife,, and children, a saw^ 
yer out of work, whose eyes were so af- 
fected by the dust that falls into the pit, 



FBOM LONDON TO KEW. Ill 

^ tt> render hini incapable of following 
his employment. His pride, as well as that 
6f his wife, seemed to be piqued at being 
exhibited to view in the workhouse, and 
they took much pains to convince me that 
it was their misfortune, not their fault or 
thetr wish. Two fine children, one of 
them a chubby happy creature, playing 
on the floor, added to the groupe an 
interest that ^^as deeply affecting. Doubt- 
leiss, thought I, these simple people once 
entertained many projects of humble am^ 
bition, which, if explained, might draw a 
smile from the great — but here, alas ! they 
seem to be entombed for ever ! 

I now took a cursory view^ of the wo- 
Eien's yard, in which I found the same 
appearances of cleanliness and comfort as 
on the men's side. But the most interest* 
ing scene was the nursery, where sixteen 
little cherubs, the oldest about five years, 
were engaged in their innocent diversions, 
regardless whether they were in a work- 
house or a palace, and unsuspicious of 
the ills that await them in a world governed 



112 A morning's walk 

by selfishness, where the greatest of all 
crimes, and the forerunner of all calami- 
ties, is poverty ! I was pleased to find 
that the mother of three of them was al- 
lowed to fill the office of nurse, and the 
tears trickled down the poor woman's 
face, as I particularly admired one fine 
boy, who, it happened, was her child. 
"Ah ! Sir, (said she,) he's so like his poor 
father I — my poor husband little thought, 
when he died, that his dear children would 
so soon be in a workhouse" — here her 
tears and loud sobs stopt her utterance; 
but, recovering herself — **if I can't main- 
tain 'em with the labour of my hands, 
(said she,) I will do what I can for 'em 
here; there is no other happiness for me 
ia this world, and I will continue to do 
for them till God shall please to take me 
also." A woman's and mother's tearsr, 
are so contagious, and the scene before 
me formed so deep a drama of real life> 
that I hurried from the room 1 

The good matron now showed her 
cleanly kitchen, her well-arranged laun- 



FBOM LONDON TO KEW. 113 

dry, pantry, bakehouse, &c. &c. with 
which my feelings were not at that mo- 
ment in unison ; I saw, however, much 
to admire and nothing to condemn. On 
inquiry, I found that these excellent re- 
gulations were the effect of a late revolu- 
tion in the establishment. Till a very 
recent period, it had been the criminal 
practice of the overseers, and the negli- 
gent sufferance of the parish, to farm 
or LET OUT the poor to some grim tyrant 
or task-master, at the average rate o€ 
5s. 6d. per head ! This man was to pro- 
vide for these wretched victims of the pub- 
lic neglect, and of his miscalculation, out 
of 5*. 6d, per week, rent exclusive; and 
his remuneration consisted in the differ- 
ence between their cost and that pitiful 
allowance. The cries of the poor at 
length forced their way to the ears of the 
opulent, the contractor was turned out, 
and it was then humanely determined that 
the overseers, aided by a master and ma- 
tron, should in future superintend the work- 
house as trustees for the parish. 
I 



114 A MORNING S WALK 

I understood that they had hitherta 
performed this duty with great attention 
and humanity, giving meat-dinners four 
days in the week, and soup-dinners on 
the other days, the cost proving about 
6s. ^d, per head, on the one hundred 
poor in the house, of whom forty were 
children. In the petty labours with which 
the aged, crippled, and infant poor are too 
often harassed in these receptacles, they had, 
as yet, made no essays. The stipends out 
of the house amounted, I learned, to nearly 
as much as the cost within, or to about 
50/. per week, which, at 9>s, 6d, per head, 
assists two hundred and forty objects, 
making a total charge on the parish of 
from 3 to 4000/. per annum. 

How many parishes in the metropolis 
still, however, persist in the negligent 
practice of farming their wretched poor 
at only 4^. or even Ss. 6d. per week! 
And how few of the opulent, idle, and 
well-intentioned of the parishioners, con- 
cern themselves about their condition or 
sufferings ! When the overseer calls for 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 115 

the rates, they perhaps coQiplain so hea- 
vily of the amount, that he fears to in- 
crease the allowance, however sensible he 
may be of its necessity ; or, perhaps, when 
accosted by a beggar in the street, they 
excuse themselves by quoting their large 
contributions to the rates, and refer the 
despairing wretch to the workhouse ! How 
incumbent then to see what that work- 
house is ! — ^Whether its arrangements aro 
not more fitted for dogs or pigs, than for 
rational and heart-broken fellow-creatures, 
however unequal in fortune, or however 
differing even in virtue 1 Let us then 
neither wonder nor complain, that our 
streets or highways are filled with objects 
of misery, preferring the cold ground, the 
unsparing storm, and the inclemency of 
seasons, to the provisions legally provided 
for them ; if we have not had the industry 
to ascertain, the courage to reform, and 
the benevolence to improve, the condition 
of their parochial asylums ! 

The reader of sensibility will not, I 
trust, complain of the length of details 
IS 



116 A morning's walk 

on an object which interests every son 
and daughter of Britain. The other de- 
mands on my time allowed me to spend 
but twenty minutes in this receptacle of 
the helpless and unfortunate; yet what a 
volume of feelincfs and reflections were 
excited in that short period ! We have 
had a, Howard, I exclaimed, who visited 
our gaols and alleviated the condition of 
those who are forced to drink the dregs 
of the cup of misery, from the iron-hearted 
and unsparing hands of lawyers, whose 
practices are sometimes countenanced by 
the incorrigible character of criminals! 
We have a Webb, who vainly assaults 
the giant Penury on the King's highway, 
but whose frightful strides outstrip his 
generous speed ! — We want then some 
ANGEL, in the form of man, who, uniting 
the courage and perseverance of a How- 
ard with the liberaUty of a Webb, will 
visit and report on the condition of 
our Workhouses. But, if, as every parish 
contains its workhouse, and every county 
but one gaol, the task in consequence is 



mOM LONDON TO KEW. llf 

too great for one life, though actuated by 
the godhke zeal of a Wesley ; then it is 
a task worthy of parish committees, com- 
posed of groupes of Angels, in the form 
of benignant Women, who will find, that 
the best-spent and the happiest morning of 
every month would be passed in a visit 
to the workhouse; where, with slender 
alms, kind advice, and fostering care, they 
would be able to soothe the sorrows of 
the aged widow,— to comfort the sick and 
helpless, — to pour balm into the mental 
lyounds of those who are reduced from 
9<ffiuence by misfortune, — to raise from 
hopeless indigence modest merit, which 
never found a friend, — aqd to protect or- 
phan children, who need advice and pilot- 
age in their outset in life. No pampered 
minion of fortune need complain of ennui, 
or be anxious for new amusements, in 
whose parish there exists a workhouse. 
It is a Stage on which Dramas, serious or 
tragical, are every day performed; the 
interest of which is created by no tricks 
of the author or machinist, but in whiql^ 
i3 



iis A morning's walk 

the performers play their parts according 
to nature, always touching the most sen- 
sitive chords of the heart. No spectator 
6ver came away from one of these houses 
without having his feelings wrought up 
by actors of all ages, who far outstrip our 
Siddonses, Kembles, Bettys, Youngs, or 
Keans, and whose petit dramas excel 
those of * Shakespeare, Rowe, or Otway, 
in the degree in which suffering and un- 
sophisticated Nature is superior to the 
trappings and blandishments of Art. 

Wandsworth having engaged me above 
an hour, I endeavoured to recover my 
loitering, by a rapid pace towards Put* 
KEY Heath, where a crowd of objects 
presented themselves for description and 
observation. 

The road from Wandsworth to Put- 
ney Heath ascends with a gentle slope, 
which is inclined about six degrees from 
the horizontal plane. Wandsworth itself 
lies little above the level of the Thames 
at high water ; and, as this road ascends 
nearly a mile, with an angle which aver- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 115 

ag€S six degrees, the height of Putney 
and the adjoining Wimbledon Common 
may be taken at about the tenth of a mile, 
180 yards, or 540 feet. The ascent of 
one yard in ten gives that gentle fall to the 
road, which, in a smaller degree, ought 
to be conferred artificially on all roads, 
in order that they might drain lengthways, 
and that the argillaceous earth might be 
carried off in solution, and only the hard 
bed of silex remain behind. This beauti- 
ful piece of road is a fine exemplification 
of that principle ; but an elevation of two 
degrees, or nearly one yard in thirty, 
would be sufficient for the purpose ; and, 
if the rise and fall in flat roads were made 
to take place at every quarter of a mile, 
the difference between the bottoms and 
tops would be about fifteen yards. In 
general, the natural inequalities of the 
country would assist such a system of phi- 
losophical road-making; but, notwithi- 
standing the first labour, it merits no less 
respect in all dead levels, as the only 
means of carrying off their standing water 



120 A morning's WALK 

and clay, and of establishing a hard bot- 
tom, which, when once formed, would last 
for many years. Any person who has not 
duly regarded this principle, will be struck 
with its justness, by taking notice, during 
a journey, of any piece of road from which 
the road-makers have been unable to turn 
a stream of running water; and he will 
find, that it possesses a hard smooth bot- 
tom, and stands less in need of repair than 
any road in the same vicinity. Let us 
then take a lesson from nature on this 
subject, as we do on all others when we 
evince our modesty and wisdom. 

The objection to this form of roads, 
founded on the increase of draught re- 
quired in ascending one side of the in- 
clined plane, has no validit3% An incli- 
nation of two degrees rises one yard in 
thirty; consequently, such a power as 
would draw thirty tons on level ground, 
must, other circumstances alike, be equal 
to thivty-one tons on a road so inchned. 
The resistance of friction in roads which 
permit the wheels to sink into them, rises, 



FR6M LONDON TO KEW. 121 

hiDwever in a much higher proportion. 
It may be assumed, that wheels which sink 
but half an inch, would require an in- 
creased draught of an eighth, or, in the 
above instance, of 2^ tons; if an inch, 
they would require a fourth more, or 7^- 
tons; if two inches, a half increase, or 
fifteen tons ; and at three inches, the 
power would be required to be double. 
Different soils, and different wheels, would 
indicate different proportions, but the 
above may be taken as averages; and, 
when contrasted with the small increase 
of power, rendered necessary by the ascent 
of an inclined plane, the latter, on the 
ascending half of any road, will appear 
to be unimportant. 

' The Emperor Napoleon, who endea^ 
voured to apply philosophy to all the ails 
of life, decreed, that no public road in 
France should exceed an inchnation of 
4° 46/, or rise more than one metre in 
twelve. This proportion, it was esti- 
mated, would combine the maxima and 
minima of the powers; and, in spite of 



Ite A morning's WALK 

those malignant confederacies which he 
was so often called upon to overthrow, 
the labour of reducing many steep roads 
of France to this practicable inclination 
was accomplished, and hence the praises 
of the roads of that country which we 
read in the narratives of our tourists. 
England, which set the first example to 
Europe, in this branch of economy, ought 
not to allow itself to be outdone by the 
measures of a reign which it asserted was 
incompatible with regal dignity; but, pro- 
ceeding on correct principles, it ought 
in this case to imitate even a bad example, 
and to correct its system of patching up 
its roads under the direction of surveyors, 
ignorant of general principles, and at the 
expence of local commissioners, who are 
interested in making their improvements 
on the narrowest scale. The rapid ad- 
vancement of Great Britain in social com- 
forts, within the last sixty years, may be 
ascribed to the turnpike system, which 
took the jurisdiction of the public roads 
out of the hands of parish- officers, and 
1 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 125 

transferred it to commissioners of more 
extensive districts. A still further im- 
provement is now called for by superadding 
the controul of a national road po- 
lice, which should equalize the tolls, 
or apply the whole to the unequal wants 
of various districts ; so that roads of 
nearly equal goodness might characterize 
all parts of an empire which ought to be 
rendered one great metropolis, and to be 
united in means and fraternity by all the 
facilities of human art. 

A stage-coach toiling against this road 
of six degrees inclination, and a flour- 
waggon traversing from side to side to 
lengthen the hypotheneuse, yet stopping 
at every hundred yards to enable the 
horses to recover their ordinary tone of 
breathing, proved the good policy of that 
law in France, which would have lowered 
this road at the top full thirty yards, and - 
have extended the hypotheneuse three 
hundred and sixty yards under the level 
road at the summit. If the barbarity of 
the practice of tight-reining the heads of 



124 A morning's walk 

wretched horses needed any exaggeration, 
its superlative absurdity was evidenced in 
the horses which I saw labouring up this 
hill. Nature, which does nothing in 
vain, had a final purpose in giving motion 
to the vertebrae that join the head of an 
animal to the trunk. The moving head 
is, in truth, one of the extremities of that 
compound animal lever, whose fulcrum 
is the centre of gravity. The latter point 
is disturbed in its inertia, and acquires 
progressive motion by the action of the 
extremities of the lever, which are them- 
selves moved by volition, whose seat is 
in the cranium ; and the head, in conse- 
quence, is in all instances the first mover. 
The propulsion or vibration of the head 
puts the entire muscular system in motion, 
disturbs the balance on the centre of gra 
vity, and so effects the sublime purposes 
of loco-motion in all animals. Yet it is 
this prime mover which the greater brutes, 
who profess themselves knowing in the 
economy of horses, so tie up that it caa 
in no way exert itself; and then they whip 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 125 

and spur the animal to force it to make 
new and unnatural exertions ! Let any 
man, himself an erect animal, the powers 
of whose primum mobile are divided be- 
tween his head and his hands, cause his 
head to be so tied back and fastened 
behind as to force out his chest. In that 
position let him try his comparative pow- 
ers in walking or running with speed and 
safety, or in carrying or drawing a load, 
and he will soon be convinced of the 
cruelty of the practice of tying up the head 
of a horse for no other purpose than that 
he may look bold and noble! Wesley 
and Bakewell, who rode more tlian 
any men of their time, told me that they 
had suffered from frequent falls, till, by 
attendincr to the evident desis^ns of nature, 
they suffered the bridle of their horses to 
festoon in a semicircle ; and since then, in 
riding thousands of miles, they had never 
endured even the anxiety of a stumble. 

A pedestrian like the writer could not 
avoid feeling grateful to the constructor 
of this piece of road, for its beautiful and 



%2S A morning's walk 

spacious causeway, which extends from 
the village of Wandsworth to Putney 
Heath. It is in most parts seven feet 
wide, and it doubtless owes much of its 
hardness, smoothness, and dryness, to its 
declining position, which causes the water 
to run off, carrying with it in solution the 
argillaceous earth, and leaving a basis of 
pure but well pulverized silex. All who 
reside in the country, ladies particularly, 
know how to estimate the worth of a 
broad, smooth, and dry walk, by the mi- 
series so generally suffered from those of 
a contrary description. For the sake, 
therefore, of the example and the pre* 
cept, they will candidly excuse the eulogy 
extorted from a wandering pedestrian on 
meeting with so agreeable an accommo- 
dation in a district, which, in many re* 
spects, seems appropriated to the caprice 
of wealth. To supply the deficiency of 
our Road Bills, one sweeping law ought 
to enact that all turnpike roads should 
be provided with a raised causeway for 
foot passengers, at least five feet wide, 



FRaM LONDON TO KEW. ISf 

with cross posts at every furlong to pre- 
vent equestrians from abusing it, and with 
convenient seats at the end of every 
mile. It is too much to expect in these 
times to see realized the writer's favour- 
ite plan of MiLE-STONE and marine 
COTTAGES, among a people who have 
passionately mortgaged all their estates, 
and blindly encumbered all their industry, 
in paying the interest of money raised to 
carry on wars made for the purpose of 
regulating the independant governments 
of other countries ! 

The sides of this road and the openings 
of the distant landscape, excite the admi- 
ration of the eye of taste by the archi- 
tectural and horticultural beauties of man- 
sions which have sprung out of the profits 
or artifices of trade. The multiplication 
of these dormitories of avarice is con- 
sidered by too many as the sign of pub- 
lic prosperity. Fallacious, delusive, and 
mischievous notion ! Was the world made 
for the many, or the few ? Can any one 
become rich from domestic trade without 



128 A morning's WALK 

making others poor ; or can another bring 
wealth from foreign countries except by 
adding to the circulating medium, and 
thereby diminishing the value of money ? 
In either case, what is the benefit to the 
public or the community ? Yet a benefit 
is rendered visible — a fine house has arisen 
where there stood before but a wretched 
hovel — and a paradise has been created 
out of a sheep pasture ! — The benefit, 
however, is merely to the individual ! His 
pride and taste have been gratified, and this 
gratification is called a benefit — yet with 
him the benefit, if to him it really be so, 
begins and ends. But he employs the 
neighbourhood, patronizes the arts, and 
encourages trade ? Granted, — but whence 
come his means ? His wealth is not mi- 
raculous. It has no exclusive or orioi- 
nal properties. If he spend it at Put- 
ney, he must draw it from other places, 
either from rents qf land or houses, or 
from interest of money, both the fruit of 
other's industry, and the sign of corres-- 
ponding privations in those who pay them I 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 12^ 

For the sake of the elegant arts, which 
derive their encouragement from the su- 
perfluities of the few, I am no enemy 
to any moderate inequalities of means 
which enable men to become examples 
of the good effects of industry; I merely 
object to the vulgar inference that splen- 
did mansions serve as signs of the increas- 
ing wealth of a country. Better criterion^, 
w^uld be the diffusion of plenty and com- 
fort — abundance of smoking farm-houses 
^nd well-stored barns — cheap provi- 
sion s and DEAR LABOU R— enough with 
moderate exertions for home consumption, 
and something to exchange for the luxuries 
of different climates. But it is no index of 
national prosperity that elegant villas rise 
like sun-flowers, as gaudy as unprofitable, 
while gaols are crammed with insolvents 
or needy culprits, and poor-houses are 
filled with wretchedness ! Poland as- 
tonishes travellers by the splendour of its 
palaces • while in the same prospect they 
are shocked at the huts of the people, 
exhibiting the characteristics of English 

K 



130 . A morning's walk 

hog-sties ! Let the increase of spleritft 
therefore, be considered rather as a proof 
of the derangement of social order, than 
as any sign of its triumph; and let us liot 
forget that, however much fine houses may 
benefit and gratify the blameless and often 
meritorious occupants, they do not, aS* 
such, serve as any signs of increased opu- 
lence in the community at large.- ' ^ ■ ' -^ 
On arriving near the top of this road^ 
I obtained a distinct view of a pheno-^ 
menon, which can be seen no where in 
the world but at this distance from Lon- 
don. The Smoke of nearly a miUion of 
coal fires, issuing from the two hundred 
thousand houses which compose Londoii^ 
and its vicinity, had been carried in a 
compact mass in the direction which lay 
in a right angle from ray station. Half ^ 
million of chimneys, each vomiting a bushel" 
of smoke per second, had been disgorging 
themselves for at least six hours of the 
passing day, and they now produced a 
sombre tinge, which filled an angle of the 
horizon equal to 70^, or in bulk twenty-five 



FftbM LONDON TO KliW. 131: 

hliles long, by two miles high. As this cloud- 
goes forward it diverges like a fan, becoming, 
constantly rarer; hence it is seldom per- 
ceived at its extremity, though it has beea 
distinguished near Windsor. As the wind 
Tjhanges, it fills by turns the whole country^ 
•within twenty or thirty miles of London ; 
-and over this area it deposits the volatilized 
products of three thousand chaldrons, or 
nine millions of pounds of coals per day, 
producing peculiar eflfects on the country^' 
Jx\ London this smoke is found to bligb^ 
Ordestroy all vegetation ; but, as i,he vi^ 
cinity is highly prolific, a smaller quantity^, 
of the same residua may be salutary, or 
the effect may be counteracted by the extra, 
supplies of manure which are afforded by 
the metropolis. Other phenomena are 
produced by its union with fogs, rendering 
them nearly opaque, and shutting out the 
light of the sun ; it blackens the mud of 
the streets by its deposit of tar, while the 
ynctuous mixture renders the foot-pave- 
^^t slippery^ and it produces a solemn 
glopra whenever a sudden change of wind 
K 2 



1S2 A morning's walk 

returns over the town the volume that was 
previously on its passage into the country. 
One of the improvements of this age, by 
which the next is likely to benefit, has been 
its contrivances for more perfect combus- 
tion ; and for the condensation and sublima- 
tion of smoke. The general adoption of a 
system of consuming the smoke would ren- 
der the London air as pure as that of the 
country, and diminish many of the nui- 
sances and inconveniences of a town re- 
sidence. It must in a future age be as 
difficult to believe that the Londoners 
could have resided in the dense atmos- 
phere of coal-smoke above described, as 
it is now hard to conceive that our an- 
cestors endured houses without the con- 
trivance of chimneys, from which conse- 
quently the smoke of fires had no means 
of escape but by the open doors and 
windows, or through a hole in the roof ! 

On the left I passed the entrance into 
the tastefully planned, but very useless, 
park of the justly esteemed. Earl Spen- 
cer. It contains about seven hundred 



PROM LONDON TO ItEW. 133 

acres, disposed so as to please the eye of 
a stranger, but which, like all home-spotSy 
soon lose, from their familiarity, the power 
of delighting a constant occupant. Why 
then appropriate so fine a piece of ground 
to so barren a purpose ? Does the gra- 
tification of strangers, and the first week's 
pleasure to the owner, counterpoise the 
consideration that the same spot would 
afford the substantial ornament of ten farms, 
or subsistence to three hundred and forty 
cottages, with two acres of garden and 
pasture? The superb mansion of Lord 
Spencer, with all necessary garden-ground 
and pasturage, would not less ornament 
the landscape, nor be less ornamented by 
such an assemblage of humbler happiness. 
Though a Repton might exhaust his 
magic art in arranging the still beauties of 
a park, yet how certainly would they pall 
on the eye after the daily survey of a 
month ! Why then sacrifice to the pride 
of custom that which in other dispo- 
sitions might add so much to the sum 
of happiness? Let the means of pro- 
K 3 



134 A morning's walk 

moting the felicity of others constitute 
part of oar own ; and, with the aid of the 
ornamental gardener, both objects might be 
combined. He would so dispose of his 
white- washed cottages, so groupe his farm- 
yards, and so cluster his trees, that from 
every window of the feudal mansion the 
hitherto solitary occupant might behold 
incessant variety, accompanied by the 
pleasing associations growing out of pros- 
perous industry and smiling plenty. Does 
Claude ever revel in solitudes? Does 
Poussin fascinate in exhibitions of me- 
chanical nature ? And when does WooUet 
enchant us but in those rich landscapes 
in which the woods are filled with peeping 
habitations, and scope given for the imagi- 
nation by the curling smoke of others rising 
behind the trees ? 

'f On entering Putney Heath, my atten-^ 
tion was drawn towards an obelisk which 
stands by the road-side, recording a won- 
der of the last age ; and the liberal atten- 
tion of the public authorities to a dis- 
covery which promised ulterior advantages 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 135 

to the community. Several recent Fires 
had led ingenious men to consider of the 
means of preventing similar catastrophes. 
One person improved water-engines, ano- 
ther suggested floors of stucco, and others 
contrived means of escape ; but David 
Hardey, esq. a son of the illustrious writer 
who traced to their sources the associa- 
tions of Ideas, and then a member of par- 
liament, contrived to build a house which 
no ordinary application of ignited combus- 
tibles could be made to consume. i 
.^This house, still standing at the distance 
of a hundred yards from the obelisk, serves 
as a monument of the inventor's plans.; 
|iul^ir*like every thing besides, it recently 
excited the avarice of speculation, andj 
iiylimi itsiaw:it, ;was filled with workmen, 
who where converting it into a tasteful 
mansion, adding wings to it, tl^rowing oiit 
yerandas, and destroying every vestige of 
its original purpose. One of the work- 
men shewed me the chamber in which^ in 
J 774, the King and Queen took their 
breakfast; whil^, in the room beneath, 



136 . A morning's walk 

fires were lighted on the floor, and various 
inflammable materials were ignited, to 
prove that the rooms above were fire-* 
proof. Marks of these experiments were 
still visible on the charred boards. In like 
manner there siill remained charred sur- 
faces on the landings of the staircase, 
whereon fires had been ineffectually light- 
ed for the purpose of consuming them, 
though the stairs and all the floorings 
were of ordinary deal 1 The fires in the 
rooms had been so strong that parts of 
the joists in the floor above were charred, 
though the boards which lay upon them 
were in no degree affected. 

The alterations making at the moment 
enabled me to comprehend the whole of 
Mr. Hartley's system. Parts of the floors 
having been taken up, it appeared that 
they were double, and that his contrivance 
consisted in interposing between the two 
boards, sheets of laminated iron or cop- 
per. This metallic lining served to render 
the floor air-tight, and thereby to inter- 
cept the ascent of the heated air ; so that, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 137 

although the inferior boards were actually 
charred, the less inflammable material of 
metal prevented the process of combustion 
from taking place in the superior boards. 
These sheets of iron or copper, for I found 
both metals in different places, were not 
iiiicker than tinfoil or stout paper ; yet, 
when interposed between the double set 
of boards, and, deprived of air, they ef- 
fectually stopt the progress of the fire. 
' The House of Commons voted 2500/. 
to Mr. Hartley to defray the expences of 
this building ; the sovereign considered it 
a popular act to give him countenance; 
and a patriotic lord-mayor and the cor- 
poration of London, to impress the public 
with deeper convictions of its importance, 
%pitnessed the indestructible property of 
the structure on the 110th anniversary 
of the commencement of the great fire of 
London. Yet the invention sunk into 
obscurity, and few records remain of it 
except the pompous obelisk and the wreck 
of this house. 

It merits observation, that in modern- 



138 A MORNING*S WALK 

built Houses taste or accident has efFect- 
ed sufficient security against fires without 
any special preventives. j Flame is cm\yi 
ungovernable when in its ascent it meet^ 
with combustible materials. Heat, as th^ 
principle of expansion, rarefies and volaw 
tilizes all bodies ; and then, as the heavier 
give place to the lighter, so bodies subject 
to its action ascend, and carry up with 
them the prirK:iple, matter, or action afe 
heat. A chief object therefore of man's^ 
policy in economizing fire, in subduing ife 
to his use, and in governing its decompo- 
sing and destructive powers, should bjj# 
to prevent its finding fuel in the ascentei 
No connected timbers ought therefore tot 
join an inferior floor with a superior, sq, 
that, if one floor were on fire, its feeble: 
lateral combustion might easily be extint; 
guished with a mop and a pail of water, 
provided no train of combustibles were 
extended to the floor above. Such is the 
language of philosophy, and such the 
slight process of reason, by attending to 
which the habitations of men may at all 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 139 

times be secured against the calamity of 
fire. How absurd however was the con- 
struction of our houses till within the last 
twenty or thirty years ! Wooden stair- 
cases, exposed wooden balusters, and 
wainscotted walls, coated with paints com- 
posed of oil and turpentine, and put toge-, 
fher more like a train of combustibles, 
than the habitations of beings calling them^ 
selves rational 1 The taste of modern ar- 
chitecture has, however, corrected the evil ; 
and stone staircases, iron balusters, plasr 
tered walls, and lofty rooms, contribute to 
cut off the communication, though a fire 
-may have seized on a flooring, or on any ar- 
ticles of furniture. This security might how- 
ever be further increased by more strictly 
regarding the principle; by cutting off 
all contact between floor and floor, 
made by wooden pilasters, window-shut- 
ters, &c. ; by the more liberal introduction 
.of' iron; and by the occasional use pf 
Hartley's iron or copper sheets. 

By analogous reasoning it is suggested 
to-us, that, if those females whose clothes 



140 A morning's walk 

have taken fire, and whose head, throat, 
breasts, and arm-pits, are consequently 
exposed to the increasing intensity of an 
ascending flame, were instantly to throw 
themselves into an horizontal position, 
their vital parts would not only not be 
affected, but the lateral flame would be 
so trifling as to be easily and safely ex- 
tinguished. What in human hfe can ex- 
ceed in horror, the circumstance of a 
woman in full health, often in the middle 
of her friends and family, being roasted 
alive by combustibles fastened to her per- 
son, from which it is impossible to escape 
till her most sensitive parts have been re- 
duced to a cinder ! What crime ever per- 
petrated by human turpitude could have 
warranted a more dreadful fate ! What 
demons, contriving mischief and torments, 
could have invented a combination of 
miseries so terrible and heart-rending? 
The decorations of beauty — the gratifica- 
tion of pride — even the humble means of 
health and comfort, are thus rendered 
the unmerciful instruments of the keenest 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. Hi 

sufferings, the most frightful sudden deaths, 
and the most dismal domestic tragedies ! 
Yet the entire evil arises from the prin- 
ciple of the ascent of all heat ; from the 
flame meeting in that ascent with fresh 
fuel to feed on, by which its intensity is 
progresssively augmented ; and then act- 
ing at its summit on the head, throat, 
and sensitive vital parts of the agonized 
victim. The remedy therefore is simply 
to lie down, when the roaring flame of 
several feet high will be so reduced that 
it may be put out with the hands, with 
the other parts of the garments^ypr ^y any 
extraneous coverinoi;. - s, i 

About a hundred yards from this fire- 
proof house, stands the Telegraph which 
communicates with Chelsea, and forms 
part of the chain from the Admiralty to 
Portsmouth and Plymouth. I learnt that 
there" are twelve stations between London 
fitid Portsmouth, and thirty-one between 
London and Plymouth, of which eight 
^re part of the Portsmouth line till they 
separate in the New Forest, Another 

2 



J 4^ A morning's WAtft ^ 

chain, extending from London to Yar-" 
mouth, contains nineteen stations; and 
another from London to Deal contains ten 
stations; making in the whole system sixty- 
four telegraphs. The distances average 
about eight miles, yet some of them are 
twelve or fourteen miles; and the lines 
are often increased by circuits, for want of 
commanding heights. In the Yarmouth 
line particularly, the chain makes a con- 
siderable detour to the northward. 

After about twenty years' experience?^ ^ 
they calculate on about two hundred 
days on which signals can be transmitted^ 
throughout the day; about sixty others on- 
which they can pass only part of the day, 
or at particular stations; and about one 
hundred days in which few of the sta- 
tions can see the others. The powers of 
the stations in this respect are exceedingly 
various. The station in question is ge- 
nerally rendered useless during easterly 
winds by the smoke of London, which 
fills the valley of the Thames between this 
spot and Chelsea hospital; or more com- 



FitOM LONDON TO KtW. 143 

ttionly between the shorter distance of the 
Admiralty and Chelsea. Dead flats are 
found to be universally unfavourable; and 
generally stations are useless nearly in 
the proportion of the miles of dead flat 
looked over. On the contrary, stations 
between hill and hill, looking across a val- 
ley, or series of valleys, are mostly clear ; 
and water surfaces are found to produce 
fewer obscure days than land in any si- 
tuation. The period least favourable of 
the same day is an hour or two before 
and after the sun's passage of the meridian, 
particularly on dead levels, where the play 
of the sun's rays on the rising exhalations 
renders distant vision exceedingly obscure. 
The tranquillity of the morning and even- 
ing are ascertained to be the most favour- 
able hours for observation. 
^;A message from London to Portsmouth 
is usually transmitted in about fifteen 
minutes ; but, by an experiment tried for 
the purpose, a single signal has been trans- 
mitted to Plymouth and back again in three 
minutes, which by the Telegraph route is at 



at least five hundred miles. In thi$ inst^n^ 
however, notice had been given to j^^^^ 
ready, and every captain wsls at his p^st^J^ 
receive and return the signals. TheLp^^^^ 
gress was at the rate of one hundred andl 
seventy miles in a minute or-three mil^§ 
per second, or three seconds at each §tat 
tion; a rapidity truly wonderfuU^ ^^'^^ 
number of signals produced by the Englisl^ 
telegraph is sixty- three— by which $hey rcr 
present the ten digits, the letters ?;<)f the 
alphabet, matiy generic words, an^jiB^i^ 
numbers which can be expressed by.^§i^||fr 
three variations of the digits. The sign^f 
are sufficiently various to express any.thr^f 
or four words J#uti(yic§ as j^iiy Qhanges^Q^ 
Ihe shutterst^-i n /tctm^yap mt . ^ : U:i\j 
a! i^Th^; observers at these telegraphs are 
pot expected to keep their, ey^const^nrt^ 
at the glass, but look only every five^i-r 
nutes for the signal to make ready, ^^hj^ 
telescopes are Dolland's Achrom%|Lc^ |it 
\«bich one would wonder,> if.eviery? thing 
done for governments wer^-flol^|pppyei;f^l^ 



tfiOM LONDON TO KEW. 1^ 

heen to enable the observer to see the 
greatest nuQiber of hours ; consequently 
the light should be intercepted by the 
smallest quantity of glass. Dollond's achro- 
raatics contain, however, six lenses, and 
possess no recommendation but their en- 
larged field, and their freedom from pris- 
matic colours in that field ; points of ^ no 
consequence in looking through a fixed 
glass at a fixed and circumscribed object. 
The field of the Galilean telescope is quite 
large enough, and, having but two lenses, 
one of which is a thin concave, it exhibits 
the object with greater brightness, and 
therefore ought to have been preferred 
for this purpose. It seems strange also, 
that, to ease the operator, it has never been 
contrived to exhibit the fixed spectrum 
on the principle of a portable camera, so 
that, without wearying the eye, the changes 
of the distant telegraph might have been 
exhibited on a plain surface, and seen 
with both eyes like the leaf of a book. 
The application of optical instruments, 
between a fixed station and fixed object^ 

L 



146 - AJUORNING^S WALK 

iBiight to have been made in an appm- 
priate inanner, and not influenced by the 
prfictices ^'hich prevail in regard to mov^ 
able telescopes for various objects, ^' 

I hav^ long thought that a system l^f 
•telegraphs for donjestic purposes wotM 
cotistitute one perfection of civilization in 
any country. Multifarious are the occa- 
sions in u^hich individual interests require 
that events should be communicated with 
^egraphic celerity. Shipping concerss 
aione would keep telegraphs constantly 
^t work, between all the ports of the king- 
dom and Lloyd's coffee-house ; and co«i^ 
Amerce would be essentially served, ii^ 
during 'Change-hours at London, Bfrstol, 
Liverpool, Hull, and Glasgow, commti- 
inications could be interchanged rMative 
?t6 the state of markets, pur<3hases, s^l^$, 
sand other transactions of business. -H^ 
.^convenient too would be such a rapid 
intercourse between London and country 
rbankers, in regard to balances, advances, 
:^nd money transactions; how desirable 
^ Jaw business between London ted 



PBOM LONBON TO KfiW. 147 

country practitioners ; and how important 

in cases of bankruptcy or insolvency 1 In 

family concerns, notices of deaths, births, 

accidents, progressive sickness, &c. it 

would often be deeply interesting. The 

tstate of elections, the issues of lawsuits, 

.determinations of the legislature, questions 

v_for answers, and numberless events of 

more or less importance, would occur suf- 

^^cient to keep telegraphs in constant requi- 

^tip^ and abundantly repay the cost of 

^^intaining them. A guinea might be paid 

per hundred miks, for every five or six 

words, which, in matters of private con-* 

€ern> might, by pre-concert, be trans* 

mitted in cypher. Instead of sixty^four 

telegraphs, we might then require five 

Jiundred, and a>n establishment costing 

100,000/. per annum ; yet five hundred 

messages and replies per day, between 

difFerenta parts of the kingdom, taken at 

2/. each, would in two hundred and fifty 

4ays produce 250,000/. or a net revenue 

^1 150,000/. But to achieve so vast 

^purpose, and to confer ©n men a species 

J. 2 



14S AJMORNlNO's WALK_ 

of ubiquity, even if 50,000/. per annum 
were lost to the government, would it not be 
wortli the sacrifice, thus to give to the peo- 
ple of England an advantage not possessed, 
and never likely to be possessed, by any 
other people on earth ? , What a triumph 
of civihzation would be afforded by such 
an extension of the telegraphic system] 
The combinations of the telescope; be- 
gan what those of the telegraph would 
complete. United, they would produce 
a kind oi Jinite ubiquity, rendering the in- 
tercourse of an industrious community in- 
dependent of time and distance, and bind- 
ing the whole in ties of self-interest, by 
uieans which could be achieved only in a 
•hii^h state of civilization through fortunate 
combinations of human art. ,, , .. 

As I looked around me from t,his j^i- 
iience, a multitude of ideas, sympathies, 
and affections, vibrated withiivme, which 
it .would , be impossi ble ^ j pp v^tediqus ^ tx^ 
a^s^ . The. organ o1-^i|ijb J[|:3^^^^s 
here played upon like that, o^ ^ |tiie J|^r^ j.i| 
^"musical concert. Nor,\y^^s |j:|fb^9^;S^^sf 



FROM LONI>ON TO KEW. 149 

afeiie wmch was touched by this visual 
harmony; but every chord and tone found 
a separate concord or discord, in innu- 
merable associations and reminiscences. 
R'was, in truth, a chorus to the e3^e, un- 
attended by the noise and distraction pro- 
duced by the laboured compositions of 
Handel ; v\^hile it filled the whole of its 
peculiar sense with an effect like one of 
the tender symphonies of Haydn. It 
was'a Panorama, better adapted, however, 
to ap(5^t tharl a painter; for it had no 
foreground, no tangible objects for light 
and shade, nor any eminences which raise 
tiie landscape above an angle of six or 
eight degrees; yet, to a poet, how rich 
It ^wasr in associations — how endless in 
pictures for the imagination 1 ''^^'' 

^^'Tftie north and north-east were still ob- 
scured by the dingy, irregular, and dense 
smoke issuing from the volcano of the Me- 
tropolis; and, in looking upon it, how difficult 
if wa^^to avoid tracing; the now mingled 
maks^s back to their several sources* coti- 
sFdering the happiness or misery which they 
L 3 



reflected from their respective fire-sideSy 
and gaging the aspirations of hope, or the 
sighs of wretchedness, which a fertile 
imagination might conceive to be com- 
bined with this social atmosphere ! Con* 
venieiit alike to every condition of h«ma- 
taty> it might be considered as flowing 
at once from the dangeons of despairing 
convicts, the cellars and garrets of squalid 
poverty, the busy haunts of avarice, the 
waste of luxury, and the wantonness of 
wealth, 3^i^ 

Straight before me, the metropoHs, hke 
a devouring monster, exhibited its equivo- 
cal and meretricious beauties, its extensive 
manufactories,, its dispirmg churches and 
towers, and other innumerable edifices. 
Westminster Abbey stood promi- 
nent, at once reviving the recollection of 
i4s superstitious origin, and exciting deep- 
veneration as the depository of the relics- 
of so much renown. What topics for com- 
mentary, if they had not been recently ex;r 
hausted in the classical stanzas of a Mau* 
%iCi;l Stt Paul's, the moimmeiat oE 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 151 

Wren, was but just visible through the 
haze, though the man at the Telegraph as-, 
serted, that he could sometimes tell the 
hour by its dial without the aid of a teles- 
cope \ How eharacteristic is this structure 
become af the British metropolis, and how 
fiat the mass of common spires and smoky 
chimneys would now seem without it I The 
Menu^ment, recording the delusions of fac- 
rion,r. and the Tower, with all its gloomy 
associations, were visible in the reach of 
the river. Of Churches there appeared 
a monotonous groupe;^ while the houses 
presented a dingy and misshapen mass, 
as uninteresting at the distance of seven 
miles as an ant-hill at the distance of severi 
^f^hflndeed, any wretch capable of set- 
ting his foot upon an ant-hill, and of de- 
stroying it, because it made no palpable 
appeals ta his sympathy, might at this 
di&tanee,. by parity of feeling, let fall a 
Bnll-stone on this great city, and extinguish 
J^ £iH instant the hopes and cares of its 
ini:iiabitants. On this spot then I behold 
an assemblage of the greatest wonders of 



man's <:reation, at a focal distance, whiGh 
reduces them to the measure of an ant- 
nitL; and still further off they would bte 
eliminished even to a point ! Such is 
the estimate of the eye, nor is it heightened 
by that of the ear ; for I was assured that 
during tranquil nights, particularly by lis^t 
tening near the ground, the confused hum 
of til e vast British metropolis could her^ 
be compared only to the buz of a bee- 
hive, or the sound of a goxgh! What 
a lesson do these considerations afford to 
the pride of man, whose egotism repre- 
sents him to himself as the most important 
object of the infinite creation ; for whose 
use, he asserts, all things were made, and 
to whom all things are subservient ! It is> 
kais'e\»er, natural that the nearest object 
ahottld fill the iarfijesl angle, whether viewr 
ed by the mind or the eye; though it is the 
business of wisdom and philosophy to cor"^ 
rect such illusions of. our intellectual, or^ 
sensitive powers. h<'1 "^di i:pi'ymii »s>ildw 
r(i3^f.»thfe. moral condition, and feelings, 
c^aeeutrated within a spot thus emlxraced 



FR©M LONDON TO KBW. l53 

by a glance of the eye, bow impossible 
to form an estimate ! Supposing 900,000 
human beings are thus huddled together^ 
vtk 150,000 houses^ we may conclude, that 
100,000 will always be lying on the bed 
^-sickness, and that 30.^000 are con- 
stantly afflicted by mortal diseases, eighty 
of- whom expire every day, or three in 
every bour! Of the 150,000 bouse- 
keepers, above 50,000 are jacked by po- 
^#ft// or by -the dread of its approach; 
otber-v^j 000 maintain a precarious inde-. 
pendence ; while the remaining 50,000 
enjoy comfort and happiness, chequered, 
however, by care and the conflict of human 
passions. The greater part of the first 
(;tass are either already plunged, or pre- 
disposed to plunge, into vices and crimes 
unknown except in such a city; those of 
tlie second class maintain a virtuous 
struggle, but m^ore frequently sink into the 
lower, thaa irise into the higher class; 
while, among the third class, tbere are 
fotuid all degrees of virtue and worth, 
altbpugh mixed with an envious spirit of 



154 A morning's WA'LU,: 

rivalry, and an indulgence in expense and 
luxury that greatly reduce the number of 
truly happy families. 

J On the north, north-west, and east^ I 
still beheld the signs of this overgrown 
metropolis in vilkges-, which branch, lil^^ 
luxuriant shoots, on every side. An^riJ: 
was only on the south and south-wes%]tj|0 
the swelling downs and in tb^ charms of 
Box-hill, Leith-hill, and Dorking, that fl 
could discover the unsophisticated beauties 
of nature, which seemed to mock the toils 
of man, in the contrast they afforded ii> 
the scene m the opposite directioiif^nK# 
mm, who never fecei^r instruction ex- 
cept through their own experience, flo^k 
in tens of thousands to share in the lot^* 
tery presented to their ambition in great 
.:€ities, where thousands perish while in pur- 
suit of the prize, where other thousands 
obtain nothing but blanks and disappoint- 
ments, and whence the tens who achieve 
their object, gladly escape to enjoy theijf' 
wealth, free from the disturbance of city 
passions, amid the placid and unchange- 
able beauties of nature. 



FROM LONDON TO KiSW, t5^ 

' -fn looking around me from the windows 
of Hartley's Fire- house, it was impossible 
to avoid refiectins on the wretchedness of 
Want existing in the sooty metropolis, and 
the waste of Means in the uncultivated 
country imiBediately around me. I had 
just been sympathizing with the forlorn i0* 
habitants of the workhouse at Wandsworth,, 
at the distance of only a mile; and half a 
dozen other such receptacles of misery in- 
vited commiseration within equal distances,, 
& other directions^ y^ a radius of a few 
hundred yards round this spot would have 
<^€luded as much unappropriated and use- 
less laud as might have sufficed to con- 
fer independence and plenty on their hope- 
less inmates ! In the north-eastern direc- 
M^^ within a distajnce of ten miles, at 
Im^p tir^ty thousand families iuight be 
discovered pining in squalid misery ; though 
here 1 found myself in an unpeopled and 
uncultivated tract, nearly four miles square^ 
and containing above fifteen thousand acres 
@f good soil, capable of affording indepen^ 
deat subsistence to h^f as many families 1 

50 esuJ 015^0 aidir 



156 :a morning's walk" 

I could not help exclaiming against the 
perversity of reason — the indifference of 
power — the complication of folly ^^— and 
the ascendancy of turpitude, which, sepa- 
rately or conjointly^ continue to produce 
circumstances so cruel and preposterous I 
Let it be recorded, said I, to the eternal 
disgrace of all modern statesmen, of m^n^ 
hundreds of ambitious legislators,' atfiS olf 
our scientific economists, that in/'^f Bis 
luxuriant county of Surrey, there sfilf 
exist, without productive cultivatiorr, ric^ 
less than 25,000 acres of open commons^ 
S0,.000 acres of useless parks j'-^l^^'^lfe^ 
acres of heaths, and 30,000 iacriB^ dfWM 
WHs, "serving but to subsist a! fe^ herds 61 
deer and cattle, and to grow some unpro- 
ductive trees, though at the very instant 
10,000 families in the same county are 
dependent on the bounty of their respec- 
tive parishes ! Is this,' said. I, ih^^lMtiir 
^d age of reason ? Are these thi& crenuihe* 
fruits of civilization? Do such circtitti^ 
stances indicate the ascendency of bene-' 
volence ? Do they not rather demonstrate 



FROK LONDON TO K5W. l^% 

ttjat the principle of doing to #thers as 
we would be done unto, has little influr 
ence on the practices of our §tat^s,g^gp 
a.nd Legislators ? ; i ;;. Jrfi 

.wif may be told, that the principle of 
enclosing waste lands has long been recog- 
nised in the prevailing system of econoniyi 
and that the Legislature is incessantly active 
in passing Bills for new enclosures. But, 
I ask, for whom, and for whose benelit^ 
$fe these bills passed ? Do they provide 
=|pj^ t|\e poor?? Do they help those who 
require help ? Do they, by augmenting the 
supply, make provisions cheaper? Do they 
increase the number of independent lire- 
sides.?^-7- ftMher, do they not wantonly 
add .j(^4Jv^e,.nj^^i3s, of monopolists? J)o 
tb<ey not give where nothing is wanted,^^^ 
b^Qwever much may be coveted ?' Do they 
not add to the number of vassals, and 
diminish the number of freemen? Do 
they not abridge the scanty means of the 
poor in the free use of their bare-cropt 
^omnions? And do they not transfer those 
inea.|^|g,|}|l^:fjj'ho do not want f^p^^ 



and who, without the aid of new laws, 
could never have enjoyed them? ^r^jaulli 

Yet does reason afford no alternati^f 
Is benevolence farced to prefer barrea 
heaths from which cottagers may derive 
scanty meals, merely because those who 
have the power fail to reconcile the rights 
of others who want, with the benefit of the 
whole community? Is our wisdom coi> 
fined in so narrow a circle? Has natur-e 
provided abundance, and do w^ create in- 
^ijperable bars to its enjoyment? I^^U^f^ 
^hei line of demarcation between the seifisb 
ordinances of man, and the wise dispensit- 
^|ons of Providence? ,^ ^j.^,, ,^,^^5 ^^, 

Let me recommend our legislators .fcsr 
^nce to put their greedy, covetous, and 
^ordinate Selves .putv.pf^pQnsideration. 
The poor may not Jbe quahfied to plead 
their rights, except by acts of ripting; bu4: 
let them find clamorous advocates iu_v the 
consciences of some of their law-makers^ la 
ispite, then^ of the fees of parliament^ j^^f 
hort th^ Legislature to pass a G^i^js^i. 
XKCLos^ujij: jBiLj., not suc\\ a on% howr 



TROM LONDON TO KEW. t49 

ever, ias would be Teconitli ended by the 
illustrious Board of Agriculture, but found- 
ed on such principles as might appropri- 
ately confer on it the title of a Bit^ 

FOR THE EXaTNCTION OF WANT ! 

In discussing and enacting its provisions^ 

let it be borne in mind, that the surface 

of the earth, li^e the atmosphere in which 

We breathe, and tlie light in which we 

Ifee, is the natural and common patrimony 

^fifiAkn. Let it b© considered, that hf 

^mtM^ we iare tillers of the soil, and that 

a'll the artifices of society, and the employ*- 

tnents of towns, are good and desirable in 

the degree only in which they promote 

Ifce comforts of the country. Let it 

^i^ Mt,' that the 1-0,000 destitute families 

iiP^tei' county of Surrey, and the half 

^ai&n' in England and Wales, are so, 

yUerelf because servitude or manufac- 

^^eishave failed to sustain them ; and that 

^hey require, in consequence, the free use 

of the means presented by nature for their 

subsistence. In fine, let it be considered, 

that the unappropriated wastes are ana- 



160 A morning's walk r 

tional stock, fortunately in reserve as a 
provision for the increasing numbers of 
destitute; and that no more is required 
of the law than to arrange and economize 
the distribution, consistently with the wants 
of some, and the rights of all. 

I indulged myself in a pleasing reverie 
on this subject, while I rambled from the 
spot where it originated towards an ad- 
jacent house, ill which died the late 
Mr. Pitt, a man who had the opportunity 
of executing that which I have the power 
only to speculate upon, and who, though 
resident in this tract, was blind to its capa- 
bilities. Ah ! thought I, perhaps in a less 
selfish age, this very heath, and all the 
adjoining heaths, waste tracts, and com- 
mons, from Bushy to Wioibledon, and 
from Barnes to Kingston, may be covered 
with cot tag€S, each surrounded by its two 
or three acres of productive garden, or- 
chard, and paddock! The healthful and 
happy inhabitants, emerged from the work- 
houses, the gaols, the cellars, the stews, 
lite St Giles's, the loathsome courts^ 
3 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. l6i 

tifleys, and lanes of the metropolis, would 
have reason to return thanksgivings to the 
wise Legislature, who had thus restored' 
ibem to the condition of men, and enabled 
thuem to exhibit the moral effects of the 
change. SudU^ in the opinion of the 
w«-iter>. would be a radical cure for several 
of .the complicated and deep-rooted 4ht-y 
eais€s which now afflict British society |^ 
ats -least, it isa remedy without cost .or; 
sacrifiei^; riandii i^,§ rst^b, aa homage fdiler 
from affl;a€n£€?rfa|MJi power to indigence 
and misfortune. Such a plan would dra^. 
frotp the over-peopled towns, that destitut^t 
portion of the population, whose means I 
of living have been reduced or supersedqd,^ 
byrshoals of adventurers from the co^ntry^^- 
Itityould render workhouses usekss; excepH^; 
tbi?itte vicious ;or incorrigibly idle ; woul(i;|i 
•diminish the poor-rates, and deprive the 
inmates of gaols of the powerful excuse 
afforded to crime by the hopeless ajiij.. 
g^Uiig GOndition of poverty. ?jdj?f}f||.^i|q<».fi 
The house in which that darhng of 
£«ime, the late Mr. Pitt., lived a fei^,* 
M r 



162 A'MORNING-S WALK 

years, and terminated his career, is a re^* 
dest and irregularly-built mansion^ sur- 
rounded by a few acres of pleasure-ground^ 
and situated about a quarter of a mile 
from the paling of Richmond Park. Mj 
curiosity led me to visit the chamber in 
which this minister di^d, to indulge in the 
viv^id associations produced by the contem- 
plation of remarkable localities. I seated 
myself in a chair near the spot where 
stood the couch on which he took his 
eternal slumber. I fancied, at the in- 
stant, that I still saw the severe visage 
and gaunt figure of the minister standing 
.between the Treasury-bench and the table 
of the House of Commons, turning around 
to his admiring partisans, and filling th6 
ear of his auditory with the deep full 
tones of a voice that bespoke a colossal 
stature. Certain phrases which he used to 
parrot still vibrated on my brain: *' Bo- 
naparte, the child and champion of Jaco- 
binism," — *' the preservation of socid 
order in Europe," — " the destruction of 
.whatever is dear to our feehngs as Eug- 



VKQ^ J^ON©9M TO K|iW. If 3 

lishmen," — *' the security of oiir religLcp^a, 
liberties, and property," — -*' indemnity fqi 
the past and security for the future,'' witj^| 
which he used to bewilder or terrify th^ 
plain country gentlemen, or the youtb§ 
from Eton, Oxford, or Cambridge, wba 
constitute a majority of that House. Hjs 
success in exciting the passions of such 
senators in favour of discord and war, his 
lavish expenditure of the public money in 
corrupting others, and his insincerity in 
whatever he professed for the public be- 
nefit, rendered him through life the sub- 
ject of my aversion : bat, in this chamber, 
reduced to the level of ordinary men, and 
sinking under the common infirmities of 
humanity, his person, character, and pre- 
mature decease became objects of interest- 
ing sympathy. Perhaps he did what he 
thought best ; or, rather, committed the 
least possible evil amidst the contrariety 
of interests and passions in which he and 
all public men are placed. This, how- 
Lever, is but a poor apology for one who 
knt his powerful talents to wage waj's that 
M 2 



164 A tmorning's walk 

tiiivolved the happiness of millions, who 
became a willing firebrand among nations, 
and who, as a tool or a principal, was 
foremost in every work of contemporary 
mischief. The love of office, and a pas- 
sion for public speaking, were, doubtless, 
the predominant feelings of his soul. To 
gratify the former, he became the instru- 
'ment 'of others, and thence the sophistry 
of his eloquence and the insincerity of his 
character ; while, in the proud display of 
Ans acknowledged powers as an orator, he 
Was stimulated not less by vanity, than by 
the virtuous rivalry of Fox. As a finan- 
cier, he played the part of a nobleman 
who, having estates worth 20,000/. per 
annum, mortgages them to enable him to 
spend 100,000/. and then plumes him- 
self on his power, with the same free- 
holds, to make a greater figure than his 
predecessors. But, except for the lesson 
which he afforded to nations never to 
trust their fortunes in the hands of in- 
V^xperienced statesmen, why do I gravely 
^discuss the measures and errors of one 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. l65 

who did not live long enough to prove 
his genuine character? No precocity of 
talents, no mechanical splendour of elo^ 
quence, can stand in the place of judgment 
founded on Experience. At forty-six, Pitt 
would have begun, hke all other men of 
the same age, to correct the errors of his 
past life; but, being then cut off — his 
STORY IS INCOMPLETE ! He had vvithin 
him the elements of a great man, yet they 
were called into action before their powers 
were adjusted and matured ; and the world 
suffered by experiments made in teaching 
himself, instead of profiting by the union 
of his experience with his intellectual ener- 
gies. He was an actor on the stage, while 
he ought to have been in the closet study- 
ing his part ; his errors, therefore, merit 
pity, and those alone are to be blamed for 
them who made a dishonest use of his pre- 
cocious powers. 

I learnt in the immediate vicinity, that 

he was much respected, and was a kind 

master to his domestics. A person, who 

a little before his death was in this rpom, 

M 3 



I#§ A HXGRNlNfe's WALK 

told me that it was heated to a very high 
Ittid oppressive temperature ; and that the 
€eep voice of the dying minister, as fee 
'sr^ked his valet a question, startled this 
Visitor, who had been unused to it. H'e 
died calmly, and apparently under none of 
those political perturbations which, at the 
l^rod, Vere mistakenly ascribed to his last 
^lioments. The Bishop of Lincoln, who 
'tiCfted the part of his friend and confessor, 
pGbtished an Intere^ing account of his de- 
t^ease, the a<;eiiracy of which has never 
been ^questioned. 

It being ray intention, on leaving this 
"spot, to descend the hill to Barnes-Elms, 
and to proceed by that once classical re- 
sort through Barnes anti MoFtlaketo Kew, 
I left Mr. Pitt's house on the rigiit, and 
crossed the common to the retired village 
©f Roehampton. 

Opposite to me were the boundaries 
of Richmond Park ; and, little more than 
half a inile fi-om the house of Pitt, in one 
'Hsf the most pictiifesque shuations of that 
%eaatiful deiiiesi^, stands the elegant. 



FKOM LQ^ DCm TO K E W • l6f 

mansfofl which was presented, it is said, 
to the then favourite minister, Mr. Ad- 
DfNGTGN. Thus it appears, that two 
succeeding ministers of England, in an age 
Feputed enlightened, lived in a district 
possessing the described capabilities for re- 
moving the canker-worm, of poverty, yet 
neither of them displayed sufScient energy 
or wisdom to apply the remedy, to the 
disease. I am not, however^ arrogant 
enough to adduce my plans as tests of the 
patriotism of statesmen; but I venture to 
appeal from the judgment of this age to 
that of the next, whether any minister 
could deserve the reputation of sagacity, 
who, in an over-peopled country, in which 
targe portions of the inhabitants of the 
towns were destitute of subsistence, lived 
themselves in the midst of waste tracts 
capable of feeding the whole, and yet took 
no measures nor made a single effort ta 
apply the waste to their wants. If the 
same facts were related of a ruler in any 
ibreign country, or in any remote age, 
wbat would be the inference of a modern. 



168 A morning's walk 

English reader in regard to his genuine 
benevolence, wisdom, or patriotism ? 

I am desirous of advancing no opinions 
which can be questioned, yet I cannot 
refrain from mentioning, in connexion 
with this wooded horizon, my surprise 
that peculiar species of trees have not yet 
found a line of distinction between inha- 
bited and civilized, and uninhabited and 
barbarous countries. Does not the prin- 
ciple which converts a heath into pasturage 
and corn-fields, or a collection of furze- 
bushes or brambles into a fruit-garden, de- 
mand that all unproductive trees should give 
way as fast as possible, in a civilized country, 
to other trees which afford food to the in- 
habitants? Are there not desolate countries 
enough in which to grow trees for the 
mere purposes of timber? Are there not 
soils and situations even in England, where 
none but timber-trees can grow? And is 
not the timber of many fruit-trees as use- 
ful as the timber of many of the lumber- 
trees wbich now encumber our soil ? It is 
Irue^ that, when wood constituted the fuel 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. l6f^> 

of the country, the growth of lumber-trees^ 
was essential to the comforts of the inha- 
bitants; but that is no longer our condi- 
tion. I conceive, therefore, that a wise 
and provident government, which, above 
all other considerations, should endeavour 
to feed the people at the least cost and 
labour, ought to allow no lumber-trees to 
encumber the sail until fruit-trees were 
planted sufficient to supply the inhabitants 
with as much, fruit as their wants or luxu- 
ries might require. The primary object 
of all public economy should be to saturate 
a civilized country with food. Why should 
not pear and walnut-trees supply the 
place of oaks, elms, and ash ; the apple, 
plum, cherry, damson, and mulberry, that 
of the birch, yew, and all pollards? It 
would be difficult, I conceive, to adduce 
a reason to the contrary; and none which 
could weigh against the incalculable ad- 
vantages of an abundant supply of whole- 
some provisions in this cheap form. Nor 
does my plan terminate with the orna- 
ments of forests, parks, and hedge-rows ; 



17©^ A mo*hnjng's walk 

but I ask, why many hedges themselves 
raightnot, in like manner, consist of goose- 
berry and currant trees in their most luxu-^ 
riant varieties, intermingled with rasp-- 
berries, nuts, filberts, bullaces, &c. ? Not 
to give this useful and productive face to 
a country, appears to me to be shutting our 
eyes to the light; to prefer the useless to the 
useful ; to be so inconsistent as to expect 
plenty where we take no means to create 
it; or, in other words, to sow tares and 
desire to gather w^ieat, or expect grapes 
where we have platited only thorns. Let 
us, even in this point, condescend to bor- 
row a lesson from an illustrious, though oft 
despised, neighbour, who> it appears by 
'the evidence of all travellers, has taken 
care that the roads and hedges of France 
should be covered with productive fruit 
trees. If such also were the condition of 
Britain, how insignificant would become 
the anxious questions about a Corn Bill, 
or the price of any single article of food. 
We should then partake of the ample 
stores provided, and perhaps contemplated^. 



FKOJf LONDON "TO KEW. 17 1 

by our forefathers, when they rendered 
indigenous the fruit-trees of warmer cli- 
flaates; and, feeling less solicitude in regard 
to the gross wants of animal subsistence, 
we should be enabled to employ our facul- 
ties more generally in improving our moral 
and social condition; We should thui^ 
extend the principle, and reduce the gene- 
ral purpose of all productive cultivation^ 
to an analogous economy, enjoying the 
fullest triumph which- our climate would 
admit, of the fortunate combinations of 
human art over the inaptitude and primi^ 
live barbarity of nature.. 

The sequestered village of Hoebampton 

^consists of about thirty or forty smalli 

-bouses, in contact ; and of a dozen mo- 

^Esastic mansions, inhabited by noblemen 

and well -accredited traders. Each of the 

k:tter being .surrounded by twenty or thirty 

acresof garden and pieasure-grounds, and 

bounded by high brick walls, w^hich in^ 

every direction line the roads, .Roebaoip- 

ton pFoseBts to a^ stranger a most cheerless^ 

iaapect, .!As the :planXations are oldj. the 



I72f A MORNING'^ WALK 

fuU-grown oaks, elms, and chesnuts, with- 
in the walls, add to the gloomy and call 
to mind those ages of mental paralysis 
when Druids and Monks gave effect to 
their impostures by similar arrangements. 

They serve to prove how slavishly men 
aTe the creatures of imitation; how seldom*^ 
in how few things, and by what small 
gradations genius gives a novel direction 
to their practices! When this island was 
overrun v\ith beasts of prey, in the shape 
of quadrupeds, and lawless bipeds,, the 
baron and the man of wealth found it 
necessary to shut themselves within cas- 
tellated mansions and circumvallated do- 
mains; and hence the vulgar association 
between such establishments and a pre- 
sumed high rank in their occupiers. The 
state of the country and of modern society 
renders th6m no longer essential to secu- 
rity ; yet they are maintained as the effect 
of a false association ; and half the stimu- 
lus of avarice would be lost without the 
anticipated grandeur of u monastic esta- 
blishment, buried in the centre of a wood, 



TTROM LOIJ DO N TO K E W. 173 

and cut off from the cheerful world, and 
the healthful circulation of the atmo- 
sphere, by damp and mouldering walls! 
It does not signify how apparently dull, 
how unappropriate to iixed habits, how 
unvarying the inanimate scene, how much 
the inmates may be visited by low fevers, 
agues, rheumatisms, and pulmonary af- 
fections; the manor-house, or the ancient 
•monastery, which has for ages been the 
residence af nobility, becomes, in conse- 
quence, the meed of wealth, , and the goal 
of vulgar hope, to be patiently endured, 
however little it may be enjoyed! Pride 
will feed upon the possession ; and, if 
that master- passion be gratified, minor in- 
conveniences will have little weight in 
making the election. 

1 confess it — and I make the declara- 
tion in the humble form of a confession, 
'in the hope -that those who think 1 have 
sinned, will be led to forgive my error — 
ithat I could not help thinking that the 
inhabitants of the humble cottages by the 
way-side, whose doors stood wide opeii. 



174 A morning's "WALK 

whose children were intemlingUng and 
playing before them, whose society Is m^ 
stricted by no formal reserve, whose 
means depend on their industry, who 

HAVE NOT LEISURE TO J3E UNHAPPY, 

who cannot afford to stimulate their appe^ 
tite^ so as to enfeeble themselves by the 
languor of repletion, or disease themselves 
by the corruptions of plethora, and who 
would have no wants if the bounties of na- 
ture were not cruelly intercepted — I could 
not help feeling, that such unsophisticated 
beings experience less care, less self- 
oppression, less disease, more gaiety of 
heart, more grateful sympathy, and more 
even of the sense of well-being, than the 
artificial and constrained personages who, 
.howevesr amiable, and however free frotii 
the common vices of rank and wealth, in- 
habit the adjacent mansions, with all their 
decorations of art, and all their luxuries 
of hot-houses, graperies, pineries, ice- 
houses, temples, grottoes, hermitages, and 
.'Other fencies, with which power hopes. 1^ 



FR&M LONSCyN TO KEW. ITS 

•cheat itself into enjoyment, as an apology 
for its insatiable monopolies. 

The inefficacy of wealth to raise man 
above his cares and mortal feehngs has, 
however, of late years been so honestly 
conceded, that the rich have begun, at least 
in external appearance, to assume the con- 
dition of the poor. Hence, few of those 
mansions are built, or even restored, on 
whose gloomy character I have been re- 
marking; and our proudest nobility nov/ 
condescend to inhabit the cheerful, though 
humble, Cottage. They find, or by their 
practices they seem to prove they have 
found, that the nearest approach to hap- 
piness, is the nearest approach to the 
humility of poverty ! The thatched roof — 
the tiny flower-garden — the modest wicket 
—the honey-suckle bower — the cleanly 
dairy — the poultry yard — the dove-cote^ — 
the piggery — and the rabbit-pen,— compre- 
ihe^ded under the names of the Ferme 
Ornie, or Cottage Oniee, now constitute 
vthe favourite establishments of those who 
.found so few comforts in marble partico.cs, 



A morning's walk 

liivvalls hung with the works of the Go- 
t)elins or the Italian school, in retinues of 
-servants, and extensive paries. What a 
concession of pride — what a homage ren- 
dered to nature — what a consolation to 
discontented poverty — what a warning to 
inconsiderate ambition ! 

Yet our taste ought to be governed by 
our reason and our wants. Large families 
require large houses ; it is therefore the 
business of good taste to combine capacity 
with cheerfulness. Nothing, at the same 
time, within the sphere of human enjoy- 
ment, equals the delight afforded by well- 
planned garden-grounds; and it is conse- 
quently the duty of the artist to unite 
these w^ith the cheerful family mansion. 
Here, then, begin the obtrusion, and the 
alledged necessity of those boundary walls, 
against Avhich I have been protesting. No 
such thing — such walls, thanks to the ge- 
nius and good taste of a Pilton, are be- 
come unnecessary. We may now, with- 
out walls, have secure boundaries — we' 
iaay keep out trespassers vvithout excluding 



FROM 1*0 N DON TO KEW. 17^ 

the freah air — and we may circumscribe 
our limits without diminishing our external 
prospects. In that case, how different in 
appearance would be this village of Roe- 
hampton— how much more tolerable to its 
residents — how far more healthy— and how 
enchanting to strangers, — if, instead of 
monotonous brick-walls, the boundaries 
were formed by the magical fences of 
P,i;xTON, allowing the free passage of the 
solar rays and the vital air, reciprocating 
delightful prospects from plantation to 
plantation, and adding the essential charms 
of variety to the pleasures of possession, 

The first house in the lane is the 
classical seat of the Earl of Besborough, 
enriched with specimens of ancient sta- 
tuary from Italy and Greece, and with 
exquisite pictures of the Italian, Flemish, 
and Dutch schools. Adjoining, is the 
highly finished residence of the Mar- 
chioness of Downshire; and farther on, 
are the superb mansions of Mr. Gosling, 
a banker; and of Mr. Dyer. In the lane 
leading to Richmond Park, across whicii 



178 A mobning's walk 

there is a delightful drive to the Star-and- 
Garter, is the charming residence of Mr. 
Temple; and, farther north, is the splendid 
mansion of the late Mr. Benjamin Gold- 
smid, since become the property of Lord 
Chief Justice Ellenborough. 

Various associations in regard to its 
first and its present proprietor, drew my 
attention to the site last mentioned. I 
had not leisure to examine its interior, 
but the exterior is in the best style of such 
edifices. The house looks to the north-- 
west, and, being the last in the descent of 
the hill, commands an uninterrupted pros- 
pect over the country towards Harrow and 
Elstree. The front consists of a superb 
portico of white marble columns, in the 
Corinthian order; but in other respects 
the house is not very striking, and its 
dimensions are inconsiderable. The lawn 
falls pleasingly towards a piece of water, 
and on its eastern side is a fascinating 
drive of half-a-mile, terminated by a pair of 
east-iron gates of singular beauty. But 
the object which more particularly called 



PROM LONDON TO Kl^W. 17^ 

to mind the unbounded wealth of its former 
proprietor, is a subterraneous way to the 
kitchen-garden and lawns on the opposite 
side the road. It is finished with gates 
resembling those of a fortified castle, with 
recesses and various ornaments, ail of Port- 
land-stone ; and on the near side is a spa- 
cious hermitage. 

In this house the late Mr. B. Gold- 
smrd resided, while he balanced the 
finances of the British empire, and raised 
for the Pitt Administration those vast sums 
wirich enabled it to retard the progress 
of liberal opinions during the quarter of a 
century! After the instance of a Gold- 
smid, the reputed wealth of a Cra?sus sinks 
into insignificance. The Jew broker, year 
after year, mised for the British govern- 
ment sums of twenty and thirty millions, 
while the Lydian monarch, with all his 
boasted treasures, would have been un- 
able to make good even the first instal- 
ment ! Such, however, is the talisman of 
credit in a commercial and banking coun- 
try ! In addition to their own funds, and 



IM A MOENING'S WALK 

to the funds peripanently confided to their 
prudence from foreign eorrespondents, 
^mouriting to three of four millions, the 
brothers, Benjamin and Abraham Goldt 
smid, commanded for many years, from 
day to day, the floating balances of the 
pirincipal London bankers ; and they were 
among bankers, what bankers are among 
private traders. It was their daily prac- 
tice to visit most of the bankers' counting- 
houses, and address them briefly—*^ Will 
you borrow or lend fifty thousand to- 
day?'* — According to the answer, the sum 
required was deposited oj^; the spot, or 
carried away — ^no memorandum passed, 
and a simple entry in their respective 
books served merely to record the hour 
when the sum was. to be repaid, with its 
interest. With such credit, and such 
ready means, it is not to be w^ondered 
that the Goldsmids commanded the wealth 
of the world ; nor that their services were 
courted by an administration which never 
suffered its projects to languish while these 
brokers co.uld raise money on exchequer- 



I 



PIJOM LOKDON Tb KEW. 181 

bills ! A paper circulation is, however, a 
vertex, out toF which neither individuals 
nor governments evei' escaped without ca- 
lamity, and from Whose fatal effects the pra- 
dence and integrity of these worthy men 
served as no adequate protection. A 
whisper that they had omitted to repay a 
banker's loan at the very hour agre'ed, 
first shook their credit; while some changes 
m the financial arrangements of govern- 
ment, and the malignity of some envious 
persons, (for rivals they could have none,) 
led to a fatal catastrophe in regard to one 
brother in this house ; afterwards to a 
similar tragedy in regard to the Other, at 
Merton ; and finally to the breaking-up of 
their vast establishment Whether their 
exertions were beneficial to the country 
may be doubted; this, however, is certain;^ 
that the Goldsmids were men of a princely 
spirit, who possessed a command of wealth, 
during the twelve or fifteen years of their 
career, beyond any example in the do- 
mestic history of nations. In this house 
Ben|amin repeatedly gave banquets, wor- 
N 3 



182 A MORNING'S WALK 

thy of his means, to the chief branches of 
the royal family, and most of the nobiUty 
and gentry of the realm : and it deserves 
to be mentioned, to his honour^ that he 
was the constant patron of literature and 
of distressed men of letters. Abraham, in 
like manner, gave royal entertainments^ 
and was the unshaken friend of Lord 
Nelson, and of the interesting widow of 
Sir William Hamilton, whose premature 
death in a state of poverty, was a con- 
sequence of the misfortunes of her gene- 
rous protector. 

Adjoining the splendid iron gates which 
lead into these grounds, stands a house 
memorable for the violent effects of a 
thunder storm. The records of the vear 
1780 probably describe the details of 
these phenomena; but, happening to meet, 
on the premises, with a man who had wit- 
nessed the whole, I collected from him the 
following particulars : — He related, that, 
after a pleasant day in September, a sud- 
den storm of thunder and lightning, ac- 
companied by rain and wind,, took place,, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 183 

which lasted not more than ten or fifteen 
minutes. That, believing *' the world av 
an end, his master and family went to 
prayers;" but, on the noise abating, they 
found that their extensive barn, with va- 
rious out-buildings, had been entirely car- 
ried away. Parts of them were found, on 
the following morning, on Barnes Com- 
mon, at the distance of a mile, while other 
parts were scattered around the fields. He 
related also, that two. horses which were 
feeding in a shed, were driven, with their 
manger, into the ditch on the opposite 
side of the lane ; and that a loaded cart 
was torn from the shafts and wheels, and 
wafted into an adjoining field. A crop of 
turnips were mov^^ed down as with a 
scythe, and a double row of twenty or 
thirty full-grown elms, which stood on 
the sides of the lane, were torn up by 
the roots. One man was killed in the 
barn, and six others were wounded, or so 
severely shocked as to require relief in an 
hospital. 

Having never before met with a case of 
such total destruction from the action of 



184 A morning's walk 

electricity, 1 considered these facts as too 
interesting to be lost. It may be worth 
while to add, in elucidation, that the mis- 
chief was doubtless occasioned by an 
ascending ball; or rather, as the action 
extended over a surface of three or four 
acres, by a succession of ascending balls.* 
The conducting substances were dry or 
imperfect, and thence the violence of the 
explosions. This is neither the time nor 
place to speak of the erroneous views 
still entertained of a power which is only 
known to us by experiments made within 
a non-conducting atmosphere, whose anta- 
gonist properties, or peculiar relations to it, 
afford results which are mistakenly ascribed 
to the power itself, as properties per se. 
Are we warranted in calling in an inde?- 

* I use the word hall, because 1 consider the 
power called electric, which shews itself between 
four containing and contained surfaces, as a phy- 
sical pomt bearing geometrical relations to those 
surfaces ; which point, by the rapidity of its motioft 
to restore some disturbed equilibriuo], generates a 
continuous fire, and deceives the eye by the seni- 
%iattce of a stream. 



FROM LONDON TO fefeW. 185 

pendent agent to account for phenomena 
which are governed in their appearances 
by every different surface in connexion 
with which they are exhibited, and which 
Can be produced only in certain classes of 
surfaces in .fixed relations to other sur* 
faces? Can the cause of phenomena, of 
which we have no knowledge but in the 
antagonist relations of surfaces called con- 
ducting and non-conducting, be philoso- 
phically considered but as the mere 
effect of those nicely-adjusted relations? 
Can that power be said to be distinct 
from the inherent properties of various 
matter, which can never be exhibited ex- 
cept in contrast, as plus on one surface, 
^x\^ minus in another, or, if positive on 
A. necessarily and stimultaneously nega- 
tive on B. ? Are the phenomena called 

LIGHT, HEAT, GRAVITATION, COHE- 
SION, ELECTRICITY, GALVANISM, and 

MAGNETISM, produccd by different powers 
of nature, or by the action of one power 
on different bodies, or by the action of 
different bodies on one active power? 
3 



is6 A morning's walk 

Do not the phenomena appear constantly 
to accompany the same bodies, and are 
they not therefore occasioned by the qua- 
lities of the bodies ? May not the different 
qualities of bodies be sufficient to explain 
the phenomena on the hypothesis of one 
active power? Is it necessary that the 
phenomena should be confined to parti- 
cular bodies, if there are as many active 
fluids as phenomena? Is not the exact 
limitation of each set of phenomena to 
particular bodies conclusive evidence that 
the phenomena grow out of some anta- 
gonist qualities of those bodies ? In fine, 
do not the varying powers calculated to 
produce the phenomena, consist of the 
varying qualities of bodies, and the vary- 
ing circumstances in which they are placed 
in regard to each other ; and may not the 
active power be fixed and always the 
same? Does not this conclusion best ac- 
cord with the simplicity of nature ? Is it 
probable that two active powers could be 
co-existent? May not the elasticity of a 
universal medium account for most of the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 187 

intricate phenomena of bodies ? May not 
motion grow out of the vacuum between 
the atoms of that universal medium ? May 
there not be set within set, each necessary 
to the motion of the other, till we ap- 
proximate a plenum ? May not certain 
varieties of these involved series of atoms 
constitute the several media which pro- 
duce the several phenomena of matter ? 

Prudence forbids me to extend these 
queries on subjects which will ever in- 
terest the speculative part of mankind, but 
on which it will be difficult, if not im- 
possible, to arrive at certain and indubi- 
table conclusions : as, however, I have been 
led into this digression by existing errors 
relative to Electricity, I may remark, in 
conclusion^ that the phenomena produced 
by this power arise from the action of 
opposing surfaces through intervening 
media ; that the excitement impels the sur- 
faces towards each other ; and that all the 
phenomena grow out of the motive quality 
of intervening bodies, whose surfaces are 
alternately attracted by the comprehend- 



188 A MORNliiG-S WALE 

ing excited surfaces, or out of the want 
of perfect sraootliness in the opposing or 
excited surfaces. Electricity is in fact 
the phenomena of surfaces, growing out 
of the sole property of their mutual me- 
chanical attractions, which attractions are 
gbverned by some necessary relations of 
the surfaces of the intervening media to 
the surfaces of the opposing conductors. 

At any rate, it is irrational to suppose 
that the cause of causes operates in 
the production of natural phenomena by 
the aid of such complicated machinery, 
and such involved powers, as meti have 
forced into nature, for the purpose of 
accounting for affections on their senses, or 
effects of matter on matter; in the measure 
of which they have no standard but theif 
sensitive powers and the undiscovered re- 
lations of the agent and patient. Would 
it not, on the contrary, be more con- 
sistent with the proper views of philosophy 
to dismiss all occult powers, which are sc 
many signs of our ignorance or supersti- 
tion; and to search for the segondaut 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 189 

CAUSES of all phenomena, as well be^ 
tween the smallest as the largest masses, 
in the undeviating laws of arithmetic, 
GEOMETRY, and mechanics; whose 
simplicity, sublimity, perfection, and im- 
mutability, accord with our deductions in 
regard to the attributes of an omni- 
scient architect and omnipotent 
director of the universe? 

This, however, is certain, that such ca- 
tastrophes as those described could never 
occur, if the imperfect conductors of which 
our buildings are generally composed, 
were encompassed by more perfect con- 
ductors. The ridge of the roof of every 
house should be of metal ; and, if that 
metallic ridge were connected with the 
leaden water-pipes, and by them continued 
into the ground, all buildings would be 
protected. A descending or an ascending 
ball would then find a conduit, by 
which to pass, or freely propagate its 
powers, without the violent etfects that 
accompany its transition through air and 
other non-conductors. The rods of Franklin 



'S'SO A MORNlNiO*S WALK :• 

ar-e toys, which were ingeniously con- 
trived in the infancy of this branch of 
science, but they onght now to be for- 
gotten. 

Before I dismiss this interesting topic, 
1 w^ould ask whether the transmifesioa of 
the power called e/fcz^nc, to a particular 
spot, does not always afford evidence^ 
that at that spot there exists, beneath 
the surface of the earth, either a vein of 
metallic ore, a spring, or some other 
competent conductor, which the power 
called electric is seeking to reach, when 
the antagonist non-conductors exhibit 
their destructive phenomena? Does not 
the power or vacuum created by the 
change of volume in the aqueous vapour 
of the cloud, regard only the perfect con- 
ductors prepared to receive it, however 
deeply they may be concealed beneath 
the surface of the non-conducting ^r im- 
perfectly-conducting soil and vegetable 
surface ? If it were not so, would not the 
stroke always affect the higher objects, oi? 
prefer palpable conduetors in moderatelf 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. ^ l^l 

devated sites ? In this instance 200 de- 
grees of the horizon were more elevated 
than the place attacked, while the destruc- 
tion proves that the superficies invited no 
accumulation here. Must not then the 
predisposing and operative cause have 
existed beneath the surface ; and, hence, 
may not the selection of lightning, in njost 
cases where it prefers lower sites, afford 
evidence of the existence of metallic 
strata, of springs, or other conducting 
surfaces, the discovery of which, by such 
natural test, may sometimes be important 
to the owner of the soil ? 

The bottom of Roehampton-lane joins 
the road which leads from Putney and 
Wandsworth to Richmond. Here I came 
again upon the same alluvial Fiat which I 
left when I ascended from Wandsworth 
to Putney-heath, having since passed a 
corner of the undulating high land on 
which stand Wimbledon, its common, 
Roehampton, Richmond-park, and its 
lovely hill. A more interesting site of the 
same extent, is not perhaps to be found 



192 A morning's WALK 

in the world. Its picturesque beauty, and 
its general advantages as a place o'' resi- 
dence, are attested by the preference 
given to it by ministers and public men, 
v/ho select it as a retreat from the carej* 
of ambition. On this ridge Pitt, Tqoke, 
Addington, Burdett, Goldsmid, and Pun- 
das, were recent contemporary residents. 
Here, amid the orgies of the latter, were 
probably concerted many of those poli- 
tical projects which have unfortunately 
desolated the finest portions of Europe, 
for the wicked, yet vain, purpose of de- 
stroying Truth by the sword ! In an ad*- 
joining domain, Tooke beguiled, in phi- 
lological pastime, the evening of a life 
whose meridian had been employed in 
disputing, inch by inch, the overwhelming 
march of corrupt influence; while, as 
though it were for effect of light apd 
shade, the spacious plain of Wimbledon 
served to display the ostentatious manceu- 
vres of those aer-vile agents of equivocal 
justice, whose permanent organization by 
an anti-human policy has been ^agrafted 



ifROM LONDON TO KE>T. 193 

on modern society, but whose aid would 
seldom or never be necessarv, if the 
purposes of their employers accorded with 
the omnipotent influence of truth, reason, 
and justice. 

I was now on the border of Barnes 
Common, consisting of 500 acres of waste; 
and at a few paces eastward stands 
Barnes poor-house! Yes! — in this 
enlightened country — in the vicinage of 
the residence of many boasted statesmen— . 
stands a parish poor-house on a 
waste! The unappropriated means of 
plenty and independence surrounding a 
mansion of hopeless poverty, maintained 
by collections of nearly 4000/. per annum 
from the industrious parishioners ! Lest 
readers in future ages should doubt the 
fact, the antiquary of the year 2500 is 
hereby assured, — ^^that it stood at the angle 
of the Wandsworth and Fulham roads, at 
the perpendicular distance of a mile from 
the Thames, and by the side of the 
fashionable ride from London to Rich- 
Kond !^ — Did so monstrous an incongruity 
o 



194 A morning's WALK 

never penetrate the heads or hearts of any 
of the high personages who daily pass it ? 
Did it never occur to any of them that it 
would be more rational to convert the 
materials of this building into cottages, 
surrounded by two or three acres of 
the waste, by which the happiness of the 
poor and the interests of the public would 
be blended? Can any antiquated feudal 
right to this useless tract property super-* 
sede the paramount claims of the poor and 
tlie public? — From respect to any such 
right;, ought so great a libel on our political 
economy to be suffered to exist, as a re- 
ceptacle for the poor in the middle of an 
ancultivated and unappropriated waste? To 
dwell further on so mortifying a proof of 
the faUibility of human wisdom may, how- 
ever, pique the pride of those who enjoy 
the power to organize a better system :^*-l 
therefore forbear ! '' 

These and other considerations prompt-^ 
ed me to visit the interior. I found it 
clean and aky, but the best rooms were 
not appropriated to the poor. The mas* 
1 



FEOM XONBON TO TCE W. 1 9$ 

ter and raatron were plain honest people, 
tvho, I have no doubt, do all the justice 
that is possible with a wretched pittance 
of 5s. 6d, per head per week Should 
4^. 6d, remain to provide each with twenty* 
one meals, this is but two-pence half^ 
penny per meal 1 Think of this, ye pam- 
pered minions of wealth, who gorge turtle 
at a guinea a pound, who beastialize your* 
selves with wine at a shilling a glass, and 
who wantonly devour a guinea's worth of 
fruit after finishing a sumptuous dinner !•— 
The guardians have judiciously annexed 
to the house an acre or two of ground for 
a garden, which is cultivated by the pau- 
pers, and supplies them with sufficient 
vegetables. This, though a faint approach 
to my plan, is yet sufficient to prove what 
the whole common would effect, if prot 
perly applied to the wants and natural 
claims of the poor. It is too often pre- 
tended that these wastes are incapable of 
cultivation — but the fertile appearance of 
enclosed patches constantly falsifies such 
selfish and malignant assertions. 



196 A morning's walk 

,jj?| J visited the community of these pan-* 
pers, consisting in this small parish of only 
thirty men, women, and children, in one 
large room. Among them were some dis^ 
gusting-looking idiots, a class of objectis 
who seem to be the constant nuisance of 
every poor-house.* How painful it must 
be to honest poverty to be brought into 
contact with such wretched creatures, who 
are often vicious, and, in their tricks and 
habits, always offensive and dirty. Sure- 
ly, for the sake of these degraded speci- 
mens of our kindy as well as out of respect 
to the parish-poor, who have no choice 
but to live with them, every county ought 
to be provided with a special Asylum 
^r idiots ; whose purpose should be to 
smoothen their passage through life, and 
to render it as little noisome to others, and 
to one another, as possible. 

On leaving this poor-house, I crossed 
1 Barnes Common in a north-eastern direc- 

* Since these observations were first published, a 
^ new law has provided for the separate maintenance 
' «f these wretched objects, aeariy on the plan sug- 
gested. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. \0f 

tion, with a view to visit at Barnes-Elms 
the former residence of Jacob Tonson, the 
bookseller, and once the place of meeting 
of the famous Kit-Cat Club. 
siseQn j]^ig Common, nature still appeared 
to be in a primeval and unfinished state. 
The entire Flat from the high ground to 
the Thames, is evidently a mere fresh- 
water formation, of comparatively iKiodern 
date, created out of the rocky ruins 
which the rains, in a series of ages, have 
washed from the high grbunds, and further 
augmented by the decay of local vege- 
tation. The adjacent high lands, being 
elevated above the action of the fresh 
water, were no doubt marine formations, 
created by the flowing of the sea during 
the four thousand years when the earth 
was last in fe perihelion during our sum- 
mer months; which was between twelve 
and seven thousand years since. The 
Flat or fresh-water formation, on which I 
was walking, still only approaches its com- 
pletion; and the desiccated soil has not 
yet fully defiaed the boundaries of the 
o 3 



19$ A morning's WALK 

rivef. At spring-tides, particularly when 
the line of the moon's apsides coincides 
with the syzygies, or when the ascending 
node is in the vernal equinox, or after 
heavy rains, the river still overflows its 
banks, and indicates its originally extended 
scite under ordinary circumstances. 

The state of transition also appears in 
marshes, bogs, and ponds, which, but for 
the interference of man, would many ages 
ago have been filled up with decayed forests 
and the remains of undisturbed vegetation. 
Rivers thus become agents of the never- 
ceasing CREATION, and a means of 
giving greater equaHty to the face of the 
land. The sea, as it retired, either ab- 
ruptly from some situations, or gradually 
from others, left dry land, consisting of 
downs and swelling hills, disposed in all 
the variety which would be consequential 
on a succession of floods and ebbs durhag 
several thousand years. These downs, 
acted upon by rain, were mechanically, 
or in solution, carried off by the water to 
the lowe&t levels, the elevations being 



FUOM I.0NIM3EN TO KfiW. 19^9 

thereby depressed, and the valleys pro- 
portionally raised. The low lands became 
of course the channels through which the 
rains returned to the sea, and the suc- 
cessive deposits on their sides, hardened 
by the wind and sun, have in five or six 
thousand years created such tracts of allu- 
vial soil, as those which now present 
themselves in contiguity with most rivers. 
The soil, thus assembled and compounded, 
is similar in its nature to the rocks and^ 
hilk whence it was washed; but, having 
been so pulverized and so divided by so* 
lution, it forms the finest medium for the 
secretion of all vegetable principles, and 
hence the banks of rivers are the favourite 
residences of man. Should the channel 
constantly narrow itself more and more, 
till it becomes choaked in its course, or 
at its outlet, then, for a time, lakes would 
be formed, which in like manner would 
narrow themselves and disappear. New 
channels would then be formed, or the 
fain would so diffuse itself over the sur-^ 
face, that the fall and the evaporation 
would balance each other. 



20d A morning's walk*^, 

Such are the unceasing works of crea- 
tion, constantly taking place on this ex- 
terior surface of the earth ; where, though 
less evident to the senses and experience 
of man, matter apparently inert is in as 
progressive a state of change from the 
operation of unceasing and immutable 
causes, as in the visible generations of 
the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Thus 
water, wind, and heat, the energies of 
which NEVER CEASE to be excrtcd, are 
constantly producing new combinations, 
changes, and creations ; which, if they 
accord with the harmony of the whole, 
are fit and '* good ;" but, if discordant, 
are speedily re-organized or extinguished 
by contrary and opposing powers. In a 

word, WHATEVER IS, IS FIT; AND 
WHATEVER IS NOT FIT, IS NOT, OR 

SOON CEASES TO BE ! — Such sccms to be 
the governing principle of Nature — the 
key of all her mysteries — the primary law 
of creation ! All things are the proximate 
effects of a balance of immutable powers— 
those powers are results of a primor- 
dial QAusE, — -while that cause is in- 



fROM LONDON TO KEW. 561 

scrutable and incoraprehensible to crea- 
tures possessing but a relative being, who 
live only in time and space, and who 
feel and act merely by the impulse of 
limited senses and powers. 

A lane, in the north-west corner of the 
Common, brought rae to Barnes' Elms, 
where now resides a Mr. Hoare, a banker 
of London. The family were not ^.t 
home; but, on asking the servants if that 
was the house of Mr. Tonson, they as- 
sured me, with great simplicity, that no such 
gentleman lived there. 1 named the Kit- 
Cat'dub, as accustomed to assemble 
here ; but the oddity of the name excited 
their ridicule ; and I was told that no such 
Club was held th^re ; but, perhaps, said 
one to the other, the gentkman means 
the Club that assembles at the public- 
house on the Common. Knowing, how- 
ever, that I was at the right place, I 
could not avoid expressing my vexation, 
that the periodical assemblage of the first 
men of their age, should be so entirely 
forgotten by those who now reside on the 



202 A morning's walk 

spot-^vvheil one of them exclaimed, '* I 
should not wonder if the gentleman means 
the philosopher's room," — ^' Aye," re- 
joined his comrade, *' I remember some- 
body coming once before to see something 
of this sort, and my master sent him 
there." I requested then to be shewn to 
this room ; when I was conducted across 
a detached garden, and brought to a 
handsome structure in the architectural 
style of the early part of the last century — 
evidently the establishment of the Kit- 
Cat Club ! 

A walk covered with docks, thistles, 
nettles, and high grass, led from the re- 
mains of a gate-way in the garden-wall, 
to the door which opened into the build- 
ing. Ah ! thought I, along this desolate 
avenue the finest geniuses in England gaily 
proceeded to meet their friends; — ^yet within 
a century, how changed — how deserted — 
how revolting ! A cold chill seized me, as 
the man unfastened the decayed door of 
the building, and as I beheld the once- 
elegant haU, filled with cobwebs, a fallen 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 208 

ceiling, and accumulating rubbish. On the 
right, the present proprietor had erected 
a copper, and converted one of the par* 
lours into a wash-house ! The door on 
the left led to a spacious and once su- 
perb staircase, now in ruins, Med with 
dense cobwebs, which hung from the lofty 
ceiling, and seemed to be deserted even 
by the spiders ! The entire building, 
for want of ventilation, having become 
food for the fungus, called dry-rot, the 
timber had lost its cohesive powers. I 
ascended the staircase, therefore, with a 
feehng of danger, to which the man would 
not expose himself; — but 1 was well re- 
quited for my pains. Here I found the 
Kit- Cat Club-room, nearly as it existed 
ill the- days of its glory. It is eighteen 
feet high, and forty feet long, by twenty 
wide. The mouldings and ornaments 
were in the most superb fashion of its age ; 
but the whole was falling to pieces, from 
the effects of the drv-rot. 

My attention was chiefly attracted by 
the faded cloth-hanging of the room, 



^04 A morning's walk 

whose red colour once set off the fa- 
mous portraits of the Club, that hung 
around it Their marks and sizes were 
still visible, and the numbers and names 
remained as written in chalk for the 
guidance of the hanger I Thus was I, sis it 
were, by these still legible names, brought 
into personal contact with Addison, and 
Steele, and Congreve, and Garth, ari'fl 
Dryden, and with many hereditary nobles, 
remembered, only because they were pa- 
trons of those natural nobles ! — I read 
their names aloud! — I invoked their de- 
parted spirits 1— I was appalled by the 
echo of my own voice '.—The holes in the 
floor, the forests of cobwebs in the win- 
dows, and a swallow's nest in the corner of 
the ceiling, proclaimed that I was viewir^ 
a vision of the dreamers of a past age,-^ 
that I saw reahzed before me the speak- 
ing vanities of the anxious career of 
man L The blood of the reader of sensi- 
bility will thrill as mine thrilled ! It was 
deling without volition^ and therefore in- 
capable of analysis 1 



JROM LONDON TO KEW. SOS 

I could not help lingering in a place so 
consecrated by the religion of Nature; 
and, sitting down for a few minutes on 
some broken boards, I involuntarily shed 
a tear of sympathy for the departed great 
— for times gone by, — here brought be- 
fore my eyes in so tangible a shape ! I 
yielded to the unsophisticated sentiments 
which I could not avoid reading in this 
VOLUME of ruins ; and felt, by irresistible 
association^ that every object of our £tf- 
fections— that our affections themselves — 
and that all things that delight us, must 
soon pass away like this place and its 
former inhabitants ! Beginning yes- 
terday—flourishing TO-DAY — 
^easing to-morrow! — such is the 
sum of the history of all organized being I 
Certain combinations excite, and the cre- 
ative powers proceed with success, till 
balanced by the inertia of the materials — 
a contest of maturity arises, measured in 
length by the activity of the antagonist 
powers ; — but the unceasing inertia finally 
prevails over the original excitement and 



£06 A mohning's walk 

its accessary stimuli, and ultimately pro- 
duces disorganization and dissolution ! Such 
is the abstract view of the physical laws 
which, in the peculiar career of intellec- 
tual man, successively give rise to hope 
in youth — pride in manhood — reflec- 
tion in decay — and humility in old 
age. He knows his fate to be inevitable 
—but every day's care is an epitome of 
his course, and every night's sleep affords 
an anticipation of its end I — He is thus 
taught to die — ^and, if in spite of his 
vices or follies he should livo till his 
ivorld has passed away before him, he 
will then contentedly await the termina* 
tion of that vital action which, creating 
no passion, affords no enjoyment. Such, 
said I, is the scheme of Benevolence, 
which, by depriving the prospect of death 
of its terrors, makes room, without suf- 
fering, for a succession of new genera-* 
tions, to whose perceptions the world is 
ever young. The only wise use therefore 
which men can make of scenes like that 
before me, is to deduce from them a 



FROM LONDON TO K12W. tOT 

lesson of inoderaLtion and humility ; — ^for, 
such as are these dumb, though visible 
cares of that generation— such will our 
own soon be ! 

On rejoining Mr. Hoare's man in the 
hall below, and expressing my grief that 
so interesting a building sliould be suffered 
to go to decay for want of attention, he 
told me that his master intended to pull 
i| down and unite it to an adjoining barn, 
so as to form of the two a riding-house ; 
IMid I learn that this design has since 
been executed! The Kit- Cat pictures 
were painted early in the eighteenth 
century, and, about the year 1710, were 
brought to this spot ; but the room I have 
been describing was not built till ten or 
fifteen years afterwards. They were forty- 
two in number, and were presented by 
tlie members to the elder Tonson, who 
died in 1736. He left them to his great 
nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who 
died in 1767. They were then removed 
from this building to the house of his 
brother^ at Water- Oakley, near Windsor; 



20t A morning's WALIC 

and, on his death, to the house of Mft.; 
Baker, of Hertingfordbury, where thcg^ 
now remain, and where I lately saWi 
them splendidly lodged and in fine pre-, 
nervation. It may be proper to ob- 
serve, that the house of Mr. Hoare wa* 
not the house of Mr. Tonson, and thal,^ 
Mr. Tonson's house stood nearer to thc^ 
Kit- Cat Club-rooms, having a few years^ 
since been taken down. The situation- 
is certainly not a happy one, being on a^ 
level with the Thames, and the adjacent* 
grounds being deeply flooded at higk 
tides. It is, however, completely se-* 
questered from vulgar approach, and oa 
that account was, perhaps, preferred aa^ 
the retreat of a man of business. 

At Barnes' Elms lived the virtuous 
minister of Elizabeth, Sir Francis Wal- 
siNGHAM, and here he once entertained 
that chivalrous queen. Cowley, the 
poet, afterwards resided here ; and, in a 
later age Heydegger, the bufFoony 
who gave an eccentric entertainment to 
the second Guelph, and contrived to gra- 



FROlfif rONDON TO KEW. 20$ 

tify'fiis listless mind by an ingenious sur- 
prize, in at first making him believe that he 
was not prepared to receive him, and then 
contriving a sudden burst of lights, music, 
and gaiety. 

Mn returning through the lane which led 
from the Kit-Cat Club-room to Barnes 
Common, the keenest emotions of the 
human mind vvere excited by an unfore- 
seen cause. I was admiring the luxuri- 
ance and grandeur of the vegetation, in 
trees which from the very ground ex- 
panded in immense double trunks, and in 
the profusion of weeds and shrubs which 
covered every part of the untrodden sur- 
face — when, on a sudden, 1 caught the dis- 
tant sound of a ring of village bells. 
Nothing could be more in accordance 
with the predispositions of my mind. All 
the melancholy which is created by the 
recurrence of the same succession of tones, 
instantly controlled and oppressed my feel- 
ings. I became the mere patient of these 
sounds ; and I sank, as it were, under the 
fof^f of gloomy impressions, which so 
p 



210 A morning's walk 

completely lulled and seduced me, that I 
suffered without being able to exejrt an 
effort to escape from their magic spell. 
Seldom had the power of sound ac- 
quired a similar ascendency over me. I 
seemed to be carried back by it to days 
and events long passed away. My soul, 
so to speak, was absorbed; and 1 leaned 
upon a gate, partly to indulge the re- 
verie, partly as an effect of lassitude, and 
partly to listen more attentively to the 
sounds which caused so peculiar a traiaof 
feeling. 

There were six bells ; and they rang 
what might be designed for a merry peal, to 
celebrate some village festival; or, perhaps, 
thought I, they may be profaning a sanc- 
tuary of the religion of peace, and out- 
raging a land of freedom, to announce 
some bloody victory, gained by legions 
of trained slaves, over patriots who have 
been asserting the liberties and defend- 
ing the independence of their country. 
Whichever might b^ the purpose, (for, 
alas 1 the latter, among my degenerated 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 211 

countrymen, is as likely as the former,) 
the recurring tones produced correspond- 
ing vibrations on my nerves, and I felt 
myself played Ajpon like a concordant mu- 
sical instrument. Presendy, however, it 
occurred to me, that I was not an entire 
stranger to the tones of those bells, and 
that part of their fascination arose from 
an association between therii and some 
of the earliest and dearest objects in my 
remembrance. '^ Surely," I exclaimed, 
*^they are Ghiswick bells 1— the very 
bells under the sound of which I re* 
ceived part of my early education, and, 
as a school- boy, passed the happiest days 
of my life ! — Well may their tones vi- 
brate to my inmost soul — and kindle un- 
common sympathies !" I now recollected 
that the winding of the river must have 
brought me nearer to that simple and 
primitive village than the profusion of 
wood had permitted me to perceive, and 
my nerves had been unconsciously acted 
upon by tones which served as keys 
to all the associations connected with 
p 2 



212 A MOHNING'S WALK 

these bells, their church, and the village 
of Chiswick ! I listened again, and now 
discriminated the identical sounds which 
I had not heard during a period of more 
than thirty years. I distinguished the 
very words, in the successive tones, which 
the school-boys and puerile imaginations 
at Chiswick used to combine with them. 
In fancy, I became again a school- 
boy — ^' Yes," said I, *^ the six bells 
repeat the village-legend, and tell me 
that " my dun cow has just calv'd,'' ex- 
actly as they did above thirty years 
since!" — Did the reader ever encounter 
a similar key-note, leading to a multitude 
of early and vivid impressions ; for 
in like manner these sympathetic tones 
brought before my imagination number- 
less incidents and personages, no longer 
important, or no longer in existence. My 
scattered and once-loved school-mates, 
their characters, and their various fortunes, 
passed in rapid review before me; — my 
school- master, his wife, and all the gen- 
try, and heads of families, whose orderly 



FROM LONDON TO KEW, 213 

attendance at Divine service on Sundays, 
while those well-remembered bells were 
''chiming for church," (but now departed 
and mouldering in the adjoining graves ! ) 
were rapidly presented to my recollection. 
With what pomp and form they used to 
enter and depart from their house of 
God 1 — I saw with the mind's eye the 
widow Hogarth and her maiden relative, 
Richardson, walking up the aisle, dressed 
in their silken sacks, their raised head- 
dresses, their black calashes, their lace 
ruffles, and their high erook'd canes, pre- 
ceded by their aged servant, Samuel ; 
who, after he had wheeled his mistress 
to church in her Bath-chair, carried the 
prayer-books up the aisle, and opened 
and shut the pew I There too was the 
portly Dr. Griffiths, of the Monthly Re- 
view, with his literary wife in her neat 
and elevated wire-winged cap ! And oft- 
times the vivacious and angelic Duchess 
of Devonshire, whose bloom had not then 
suffered from the canker-worm of pecu- 
niary distress, created by the luxury of 
p 3 



214. A morning's walk 

charity ! Nor could I forget the humble 
distinction of the aged sexton Mortefee, 
whose skill in psalmody enabled him to 
lead that wretched groupe of singers, 
whom Hogarth so happily pourtrayed ; 
whose performance with the tuning-fork 
excited so much wonder in little boys; 
and whose gesticulations and contortions of 
head, hand, and body, in beating time, 
were not outdone, even by Joah Bates 
in the commemorations of Handel ! Yes, 
simple and happy villagers 1 I remember 
scores of you ; — Kow fortunately ye had 
escaped the contagion of the metropolitan 
vices, though distant but five miles; and 
how many of you have I conversed with, 
who, at an adult age, had never beheld 
the degrading assemblage of its knaveries 



and miseries ! 

I revelled in the melancholy pleasure 
of these recollections, yielding my whole 
soul to that witchery of sensibility, which 
magnifies the perception of being, till one 
of the bells was overset ; when, the peal 
stopping, - 1 had leisure to reflect on the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 215 

rapid advance of the day, and on the 
consequent necessity of quickening my 
speed. 

At the end of this lane I crossed a 
mad, which I found led to ChisAvick 
Ferry. The opening gave increased ef- 
fect to the renewed peal, and I regretted 
that I could not then indulge in a nearer 
approach to that beloved spot. I passed 
a farm-house and some neat villas, and 
presently came to the unostentatious, but 
interestingly-ancient structure of Barnes 
Ghurcb, situated on the Common, at the 
distance of a quarter of a mile from the 
village. I essayed to enter the church- 
yard to read some of the chronicles of 
mortality, particularly as it invited at- 
tention by the unusual object of a dis- 
play of elegant Roses, which I afterwards 
learnt had been cultivated on the same spot 
about 150 years, to indulge the conceit 
of a person of the name of Rose, who 
was buried there, and left an acre of 
ground to the parish to defray the ex- 
pence ; but I found the gate locked, and 



^l6 A morning's WALK 

was told it was never opened, except 
during service. 1 confess I vi'as not 
pleased with this regulation, because it 
appeared to sever the affections of tlie 
living from their proper sympathy with 
the dead. I have felt in the same manner 
in regard to the inclosed cemeteries of the 
metropolis : they separate the dead too 
abruptly from surviving friends and re- 
latives. Grief seeks to indulge itself un- 
observed ; it desires to be unrestrained by 
forms and hours, and to vent itself in 
perfect solitude. The afflicted wife longs 
to weep over the grave of her husband ; 
the husband to visit the grave of a be- 
loved wife ; and the tender mother seeks 
the spot endeared by the remains of her 
child : but they cannot submit to the for- 
mality of asking permission, or allow their 
griefs to be intruded upon by strange at- 
tendants. Such tributes to our unso- 
phisticated feelings are, however, denied 
by the locks, bolts, and walls, of the 
metropolitan cemeteries. The practised 
grave-digger w^onders at the indulgence of 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 2l7 

unavailing woe — the unconscious tenants 
of his domain possess no pecuhar claims 
en his sympathy — he cannot conceive how 
any can be felt by others — and, if he 
grant permission to enter, it must be for 
some cause more urgent, and more ap- 
parent, than that of bewailing over a 
grave 1 Did it never occur, however, to 
the clergymen who superintend these de- 
positories of mortality, that more respect 
is due to the feelings of survivors ? Is it 
necessary for any evident purpose, that 
the gates should be locked at any time, 
or for more than a few hours in the 
night? And, if even this privation be 
suffered merely from the fear of resur- 
rection-men, is it not due to the best 
feelings of our nature that the severest 
punishment should attach to the crime of 
steaUng dead bodies? What can now be 
learnt of anatomy which cannot be found 
in books and models, or be taught in the 
dissection of murderers? I would there- 
fore rather bury a detected resurrection- 
jnan alivQ with the body he might 
1 



218 A morning's \^ALK 

be stealing, than shut out the living 
froQa all communion with the dead, and 
from all the sympathies and lessons ad- 
dressed to the heart and understanding by 
their unrestricted intercourse. 

Barnes consists of a few straggling 
houses opposite the Common, of a mean 
street leading to the water-side, and of a 
row of elegant houses facing the Thames, 
on a broad terrace nearly half a mile 
long. On the opposite side of the river 
is a tract of new-made swampy ground, 
shaped circularly by the winding of the 
river. The chord of this circle extends 
from Chiswick to Strand-on-the-Green ; 
and upon it is seen the exquisitely beau- 
tifol villa of the Duke of Devonshire, 
where Charles James Fox lately termi- 
nated his patriotic career ; and on the left 
are the house and extensive grounds 
long occupied by the amiable Valentine 
Morris, esq. who, on his death-bed in 
Italy, in 1786, bequeathed these pre- 
mises and a competent annuity as a pro- 
vision for about thirty aged horses and 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 219 

dogs, — and here some of them survived till 
within these seven years, dying, from the 
gradual decay of their vital powers, at the 
ages of forty and fifty. 

The beauty and seclusion of this ter- 
race have long invited the residence of 
persons of wealth and distinction. Many 
of those Frenchmen who, from interested 
connexions, or the prejudices of edu- 
cation, preferred exile and comparative 
poverty in foreign lands, to the reign 
of liberty and reason at home, came to 
reside on this spot. Here was acted the 
terrible tragedy of the Count and 
Countess D'Antraigues. These fa- 
mous intriguants, after traversing Europe 
to enlist the vain prejudices of kings, and 
the sycophant spirit of courtiers, against 
the unalterable principles of the rights of 
man, settled themselves in a small house 
near the upper end of this terrace. Here 
their establishment consisted only of a 
single Italian footman, and two maid- 
servants. One day in every week they 
went to London, in a hired coach, to 



220 . A morning's WALK 

confer with their partizans; and it was oh 
the morning of onq of these excursions 
that these unhappy persons were suddenly 
butchered by their Itahan faotraan. The 
coach stood at the door, and the Count 
and Countess had descended the stairs, 
when the servant, rushing from the par- 
lour, fired a pistol at the Count ; the ball 
of which struck, but did not injure him. 
It, however, so much surprised him as to 
throw him off his guard, when the wretch 
struck him with a stiletto between the 
shoulders. The Count at first reeled on 
the step of the door, but instantly rushed 
up stairs, as is supposed, to get e^rms 
from his bed-chamber, which he reached, 
but only to fall dead on the floor. In 
the mean time, the Countess, who was 
two or three paces in advance, and had 
reached the carriage-door, not aware of 
the cause of the report of the pistol, 
and of the Count's precipitate retreat, 
asked the man, peevishly, why he did 
not open the door? He advanced as if 
to do it; but instantly stabbed her in 



i 



FROM I/ONDON TO KEW. 22 1 

the breast to the hilt of his weapon : she 
shrieked, reeled a few yards, and fell dead 
beside the post which adjoins the house to 
the West, on the .pavement near which 
her blood was lately visible. The villain 
himself fled up-stairs to the room where 
his master lay weltering in his blood, and 
then, with a razor, cut his own throat. 
I saw the coachman, who told me that 
scarcely five minutes elapsed between the 
time when he heard them approach the car- 
riage and beheld them corpses ! The several 
acts were begun and over in an instant. 
At first he could not conceive what was 
passing ; and, though he leaped from the 
box to the aid of the dying lady, he had 
then no suspicion of the fate of the Count. 
I took pains to ascertain the assassin's mo- 
tive for committing such horrid deeds; but 
none can be traced beyond a feeling of 
revenge, excited by a supposed intention 
t)f his master to discard him, and send 
him out of the kingdom ; a design which, 
it is said, he discovered by hstening on 
the stairs to the conversation of the Count 



222 A morning's walk 

and Countess, while they were enjoying 
the water- scene by moon-light, on the 
preceding evening, from their projecting 
windows. It was impossible to view the 
spot where such a tragedy had been acted, 
without horror, and without deep sympathy 
for the victims ; yet it gratified me to find 
the house already inhabited by a respect- 
able family, because it thus appeared that 
there are now dispersed through society 
many whose minds are raised above the 
artifices of superstition, — which, in no dis- 
tant age, would have filled these premises 
with ghosts and hobgoblins, till they had 
become a bye-word and a heap of ruins ! 

Nearly adjoining and behind the resi^ 
dence of Count d'Antraigues, stand the 
premises and grounds long occupied by 
another distinguished emigrant, the Mar- 
quis de Chabanes, a relation of the noto- 
rious and versatile Talleyrand. This mar- 
quis here pursued two speculations, by 
which, at the time, he attracted attention 
iind applause. In the first he undertook 
to give useful body and consistency to the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 223 

dust of coals, of which thousands of tons, 
before their application to gas-lights, were 
annually wasted in the shipping and coal- 
wharfs ; and for this purpose he erected 
a manufactory; but, after much loss of 
labour and property, found it necessary 
to abandon the project. In the second 
speculation, he proposed to introduce va- 
rious French improvements into English 
horticulture, and undertook to supply the 
fruiterers of the metropolis with tender 
and unseasonable fruits and vegetables, in 
greater perfection, and at a lower rate, 
than they had heretofore been supplied 
by the English gardeners. For this pur- 
pose he built large and high walls, and 
very extensive hot-houses and conserva- 
tories ; but, being unable to contend 
against the fickleness of our climate, he 
found it necessary to abandon this scheme 
also; when the glasses, the frames^ &c, 
were sold by auction; and no vestiges 
now remain of his labours, but his vines 
and the ruins of his flues and founda- 
tion-wall&. 



224 A morning's WALK 

During my inquiries of the working 
gardener who has succeeded him on the 
ground, I learnt some particulars in re- 
gard to the economy by which the metro- 
polis receives its vast supplies of fruits 
and fresh vegetables. Mr. Middle-^ 
TON, in his philosophical Survey of Mitf^ 
dlesex, estimates the quantity of gardeii^ 
ground, within ten miles of the metropoli^t 
at 15,000 acres, giving employment in the 
fruit- season to 60,000 labourers. Tfe 
mode of conveying this vast produce t6 
market creates habits among this-^^t^ 
merous class of people which are little 
suspected by the rest of the community. 
A gardener's life appears to be one of 
the most primitive and natural ; btit^ 
passed near London, it is as artificial and 
unnatural as any known to our forced 
state of society. Covent-garden market 
is held three days in the week, and othea- 
markets on the same or other days; and, 
as vegetables ought to be eaten as soon as 
possible after they are gathered, it is the 
business of the gardener to gather one 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 225 

day and sell the next; hence the inter- 
vening night is the period of conveyance 
from the places of growth to those of 
consumption. AH the roads round Lon- 
dpU| - therefore, are covered with markett 
carts and waggons during the night, so 
that they may reach the markets by three^ 
four, or five o'clock, when the dealers 
attend ; and these markets are over by 
si% or seven. The shops of retailers are 
then supplied by the aid of ill- paid Irish 
women//^ho carry loads of a hundred- 
weight to all parts of London on their 
heads, to meet the demands of good 
house-wives, who, at ten or eleven, buy 
their garden-stuff for the day. This rapid 
routine creates a prodigious quantity of 
labour for men, women, and horses. Every 
gardener has his market-cart or carts, 
which he loads at sun-set; and, they 
depart at ten, eleven, twelve, or one 
o'clock, according to the distance from 
London. Each cart is accompanied by a 
driver, and also by a person to sell, gene- 
rally the gardener's wife; who, having 



22G A morning's walk . 

sold the load, returns with the team by 
nine or ten o'clock in the morning ; and 
has thus finished the business of the day, 
before half the inhabitants of London 
have risen from their beds. Such is 
the economy of every gardener's family 
within ten miles of London, — of some 
every night, and of others eveiy other 
night, during at least six months in the 
year. The high vegetable season in sum- 
mer, as well as peculiar crops at other 
times, call for exertions of labour, or rather 
of slavery, scarcely paralleled by any other 
class of people. Thus, in the strawberry 
season, hundreds of women are employed 
to carry that delicate fruit to market on 
their heads; and their industry in per- 
forming this task is as wonderful, as their 
remuneration is unworthy of the opulent 
classes who derive enjoyment from their 
labour. They consist, for the most part, 
of Shropshire and Welsh girls, who walk 
to London at this season in droves, to 
perform this drudger}^, just as the Irish 
peasantry come to assist in the hay and 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 227 

€orn harvests. I learnt that these women 
carry upon their heads baskets of straw- 
berries, or raspberries, weighing from forty 
tO' fifty pounds, and make two turns in 
the day, from Isleworth to market, a dis- 
tance of thirteen miles each way; three 
turns from Brentford, a distance of nine " 
miles ; and four turns from Hammersmith, 
a distance of six miles. For the most 
part, they find some conveyance back; 
but even then these industrious creatures 
e^ny loads from twenty-four to thirty 
miles a-day, besides walking back unladen 
some part of each turn ! Their remunera- 
tion for this unparalleled slavery is from 
Ss» to 9s, per day ; each turn from the 
distance of Isleworth being 4^. or 4*. 6d.; 
and from that of Hammersmith Qs, or 
^s. 3d, Their diet is coarse and simple, 
their drink, tea and small-beer; costing 
not above Is. or 1^. 6d. and their back- 
conveyance about ^s. or ^s, 6d, ; so that 
their net gains are about 5s, per da}^, 
which, in the strawberry season, of forty 
days, amounts to 10/. After this period 



225 A morning's walk 

the same women find employment in 
gathering and marketing vegetables, at 
lower wages, for other sixty days, netting 
about 5L more. With this poor pittance 
they return to their native county, and 
it adds either to their humble comforts, or 
creates a small dowry towards a rustic 
establishment for life. Can a more in- 
teresting picture be drawn of virtuous 
exertion ? Why have our poets failed to 
colour and finish it? More virtue never 
existed in their favourite Shepherdesses 
than in these Welsh and Shropshire girls ! 
For beauty, symmetry, and complexion, 
they are not inferior to the nymphs of 
Arcadia, and they far outvie the pallid 
specimens of Circassia ! Their morals too 
are exemplary; and they often perform 
this labour to support aged parents, or to 
keep their own children from the work- 
house 1 In keen suffering, they endure 
all that the imagination of a poet could 
desire; they live hard, they sleep oa 
straw in hovels and barns, and they often 
burst an artery, or drop down dead from 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 229 

the effect of heat and over-exertion ! Yet, 
«uch is the state of one portion of our 
female popalation, at a time when we are 
calling ourselves the most polished nation 
on earth, and pretending to be so wealthy 
that we give away millions a-year to fo- 
reigners unsolicited, and for no intelligible 
purpose! And such too is their dire ne- 
cessity, that it would be most cruel to 
suggest or recommend any invention that 
mio^ht serve as a substitute for their sla- 
very', and thereby deprive them of its 
wretched annual produce ! 

The transit from Barnes to Mordake 
Is but a few paces; a small elbow in the 
road forming their point of separation. 
Both of them contain some handsome 
villas, and they are pleasantly situated on 
the banks of the Thames; yet they are 
less beautiful than they might be rendered, 
by very slender attentions. There is no 
public taste, no love of natal soil, no 
pride of emulation apparent, though the 
scite is one of the finest in England; 
A few mansions of the opulent adorn 
ci3 



it30 A morning's walk 

both villages, and the country fascinates 
in spite of the inhabitants ; but the third 
and fourth rate houses have a slovenly, 
and often a kind of pig-sty character, dis- 
gusting to those who, in the beautiful 
towns and villages of Essex, have seen 
what may be done, to improve the habi- 
tations even of humble life. Lovely 
Witham, and Kelvedon, and Cogge- 
shali ! what examples you set to all other 
towns in your neatly painted and whitened 
houses — unostentatious, though cheerfulT-r- 
and inviting, though chaste and modest ! 
What a contrast do you present to the 
towns and villages in Middlesex and 
Surrey, and even in Kent ! If poverty 
forbids a stuccoed or plastered wall, the 
cleanly and oft-repeated whitewash proves 
.the generous public spirit of the occupant, 
while the outside seldom has occasion to 
blush for the inside. A spirit of harmony 
runs through the whole, and a pure ha- 
bitation is indicative of pure inhabitants; 
thus, cleanliness in the house leads to neat- 
ness of apparel— both require order, and 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 231 

out of order grow moral habits, domestic 
happiness, and the social virtues. Nor 
is this theory fanciful; Witham, Kelve- 
don, and Coggeshall, form a district 
which is at once the most beautiful, the 
least vicious, and the happiest, in the 
kingdom. One virtue is doubtless con- 
sequent on another, and one good habit 
generates another; the result is the 
harmonious triumph of virtue! If it be 
doubted whether the white- washed exte- 
rior is more than '^ an outward and visible 
sign" of the purity within, I reply — that 
virtue is so much the effect of habit, that 
whatever improves the habits improves 
the character ; and that, if a house were 
frequently white-washed within and with- 
out, it could scarcely fail to banish per- 
sonal filth from the inmates ; while habits 
of cleanliness, which call for habits of in- 
dustry, would produce the rest. I have, 
indeed, often thought that it would be an 
efficacious means of bettering the morals, 
as well as the health, of the London poor, 
if St. Giles's, Hockly-in-the-hole, Fleet- 



232 A morning's WAL^ 

lane, Saffron-hill, and other dens of vice 
and misery, were by law lime- washed 
inside and outside twice in every year. 
But, in whatever degree this doctrine may 
be just, let me hope these observations 
will meet the eye of some active philan- 
thropists, who, being thus taught to con- 
sider cleanliness as an auxihary of morak 
and happiness, will be induced so to paint 
and whiten our dusky-coloured villages 
and dirty towns, as to render them wor- 
thy of virtuous residents, in the hope that, 
by reciprocation, they may render them- 
selves worthy of their purified habitations. 

I do not charge on Barnes and Mortlake 
exclusively the characteristics of filth — they 
are not inferior to other villages within 
ten miles ; but the whole require improve- 
ment, and I recommend Witham, Kel- 
vedon, and other places in that district of 
Essex, to their imitation. 

Mortlake church-yard and its ancient 
church stand pleasantly on the north side 
of a large field, across which is a pic^ 
turesque foot-path to East Sheep. 1 in- 



i 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. ^35 

quired eagerly for the tomb of Partridge, 
the almanack-maker and astrologer, and 
found it in the south-east corner, in a tot- 
tering condition. Relics so famous would, 
it might have been supposed, have ex- 
torted from the Parish Vestry a single hod 
of mortar, and an hour's labour of a 
mason, to sustain it: yet thus it is, not 
only at Mortlake, but every where. No- 
thing is conceded to public feeling, and 
the most venerable monuments are suf- 
fered to fall to decay for want of the 
most trifling repairs. The following in- 
scription is still legible on the slab of the 
tomb : — 

Johannes Partridge, AstrologusetMedicinae 
Doctor, natus est apud East-Sheen, in comitatu 
Surrey, 8*^ die Januarii, anno 1644, et mortuus est 
Londini 24° die Junii, anno 1715. Medicinam fecit 
duobus Regibus unique Reginse; Carolo scilicet 
Secundo, Willielmo Tertio, Reginaeque Mariae. 
Creatus Medicinae Doctor Lugduni Batavorum. 

How many are the associations which 
grow out of this name of Partridge! 
He was one of the last of the learned 
votaries of Astrology, the mother of the 



534 A morning's WALK 

sciences, though herself the daughter of 
superstition. His works. on genitures, and 
on the errors of his favourite science, are 
specimens of acute reasoning, not ex- 
ceeded by the ablest disquisitions on more 
worthy subjects. Yet he was held up by 
Swift as an impostor, though Swift him- 
self lived by a show of faith in other mys- 
teries, for which his reverence is very 
doubtful. Not so Partridge ; he evi- 
dently believed sincerely that the stars were 
indices of fate, and he wrote and acted 
in that belief, however much he may have 
been deceived by appearances. He found, 
as all students in astrology find, that 
every horoscope enabled him to foretel 
with precision a certain number of events; 
and, if his prognostics failed in some 
cases, he ascribed the failure to no defect 
of his celestial intelligencers, but to the 
errors or short-sightedness of his art. 
Good, and even wise men have, in all 
ages, been deceived by the same appear- 
ances. They found that the planets fore- 
told some events; they thence inferred 



FROM LONDON TO KEW, 235 

that the planets ruled those and all events; 
and, if the science often disappointed 
them, they found an apology for it in 
their own mistaken judgments, or in the 
errors introduced into it by different 
authors. Astrologers were therefore not 
impostors, as they are often described by 
the over-righteous, the hasty, or the igno - 
rant. They found a science reared on 
the observations and experience of the 
remotest antiquity, and their prognosti- 
cations were deduced from its established 
laws. Its practices were directed by the 
unerring motions of the earth, moon, and 
planets; and it possessed characteristics 
of grandeur and sublimity, aiising from 
the magnitude and solemnity of its sources^ 
and from the eternal laws which regulated 
them. , 

The errors on whicli this science was 
reared, were not, however, peculiar to 
astrologers. They were engendered by 
ignorance, and nurtured by superstition 
and priestcraft. Every event happens in 



236 A MORNING'S WALK 

its own way, and cannot happen iii 
any other way than that in which it has 
actually happened ; or, in other words, an 
event cannot happen and not happen, or 
a thing cannot be and not be. This ne- 
cessary determination of every event in a 
single manner, the consequence of com- 
mensurate proximate causes, which it is' 
often difficult to analyse, served as a 
fruitful source of superstitious feeling, and 
as a handle for the priests among the 
early nations of antiquity. In whatever 
way an event happened, that was said to 
he its Fate, notwithstanding a slight ex- 
ercise of reason would have shewn that 
what has happened in one way could not, 
at the same time, happen in another way. 
But, as it did happen in one way rather 
than another, the way in which it did 
happen was said to be predetermined; 
the kind of cause was not examined 
which determined it to happen as it did 
happen ; the effect was even said to rule 
the causes; and all the causes, remote 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 237 

and proximate, were said to be operative 
merely for the sake of producing the ulti- 
mate effect ! 

As every event must happen in the way 
in which it has happened, a description 
of it, is but an expression of the certainty y 
that it has happened in such or such a 
particular manner. If this result be fortu- 
nate, then all the circumstances which led 
to it, however remote, are deemed to have 
been lucky ; though, if it prove unfortu- 
nate, the same train of causes are then called 
unlucky. There was, however, neither luck 
nor ill-luck in these trains, because the 
remote or necessary physical causes did 
not determine the proximate and fluctuate 
ing mental ones. There existed no neces- 
sary connexion between these trains, be- 
sides the necessity or certainty that some 
result must be consequent on every train of 
events growing out of human life and ac- 
tion. These trains must, in all cases, pro- 
duce some result, that is to say, a result of 
some kind, and not necessarily any parti- 
cular result. 



23S A morning's walk 

In considering the curious enigma in 
regard to fatality, men err in con- 
ceiving that all the remote causes which 
lead to an event, operate and combine for 
the sake of some particular result, in- 
stead of considering every personal or 
social event as the necessary single effect 
of the proximate causes; and they also 
confound the species of causes which pro- 
duce events. There are tw^o distinct sets 
of causes, the one physical and the other 
mental. The physical are determined by 
fixed, and often by known law^s, and 
hence we are enabled to foretel the places 
of the planets and the moment when 
eclipses of the Sun and Moon will happen 
for a thousand years to come. The men*' 
tal are governed by the varying expe- 
rience, caprice, and self-love, generated 
within animal minds ; and, being therefore 
measured by no fixed laws, produce rer= 
suits which cannot be anticipated, except 
in their proximate operation. These- 
mental causes, so to speak, cross each 
other in every direction, and at one time 
1 



FROM LONDON TO KE\y. 239 

may accelerate, though at another tinje 
they may retard, or give novel directions to 
physical causes ; and, as they are generated 
in every successive moment by the errors 
and passions of fallible beings, and 
often have an extensive influence on the 
affairs of mankind, so they constitute an 
infinity variety of original causes, which, as 
no law creates them, no law leads to their 
effects; of course, therefore, their effects 
are not necessary, and no knowledge can 
exist, enabling men to anticipate that which 
is generated by no fixed laws, and wdiich 
therefore is not necessary. 

I lately met a friend, who justly passes 
for a philosopher. He mentioned the 
distress of a family which he had just 
been relieving ; ''and, would you believe 
it," said he- — '' if I had not passed along a 
street where I seldom go, and met a child 
of the family, I should have known 
nothing of their situation? Was it not 
evidently pre-ordained, therefore, that I 
should walk along that street, at that 
tioaie, for the purpose of relieving that fa- 



240 A morning's WALI^ 

mily ?" ^' So, then," said I, "you make the 
consequence determine the cause, rather 
than take the trouble to examine whether 
the causes were not equal to the effect, 
without being themselves necessary or irre- 
sistible." '' But then," he replied, '' there 
was such an aptness, such a coincidence, 
such a final purpose !" — '* Ah 1" I rejoined, 
*^ you cheat yourself by not extending your 
vocabulary — why not say there was suffi- 
cient affluence, guided by a benevolent heart 
^ — and such distress, that they were called 
into prompt exertion? Is it to be re- 
garded as a miracle, that a benevolent 
heart proved the sufficient cause of a 
good action, and that distress was an ex- 
citement equivalent to the effect which 
you describe ? The street was a medium 
or stage of action, as capable of leading 
to evil as to good. You could not be in 
two places at the same time; nor could 
the result be and not be. ^ Had you been 
in another place, some other family might 
have been relieved from the collision of 
the same causes ; and each event would;^ 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 241 

m like manner, have appeared to have 
determined the causes, instead of being a 
single consequence of the causes. Nor 

'■^nere these causes more necessary than the 
result. Your feelings were spontaneous, 
put you may in luture change the result by 

"hardening your heart, hke other rich men." 

'^* I will do neither," said he, quickly. — - 
^l No," said I, *' I know you won't — -you 
will not violate vour habitual inclinations. 

Til future, however, do them justice; and, 
when you perform a kind action, do not 
ihake the consequence the cause."* 

' ' i sat on the tomb of Partridge, and 



^ to 



* As doctrines about fate and necessity involve a 
numerous class of mischievous superstitions, and 
^»;;e the bases of the success of endless impostures, 
it aeems worth while to turn aside for a moment 
from the high road of my narrative to examine 
ihem. Some philosophers assert, that we are the 
'inert patients of necessary causes: others, that we 
^0 what we list, without any cause, on the sponta- 
neous impulse of our will : while nine- tenths of the 
Jiuman race maintain that we are governed by an 
unalterable fate, which is predestined, and that al| 
the events of life take place for the sake of dccoiii- 
plishing some end ! What is our real cooditiou r 



\^4^ A morning's WALE 

thought it a fit place in which to rumi- 
nate on these involved poinls. Do the 

We exist on a globe' which, by a balance of rae- 
elianicar powers, moves round a centre of gravity 
bet\*een it and the- cenise of the sun; and also 
►*oondi its: own eenta^e of gravity, cofflmonicating its 
sfggFegate motions t© HI the particles that cempm^ 
it, and thereby exciting them into various mod^?»f 
action, producing and sustaining ail the phenomena 
mhich we witness. The entire mass then is the 
patient of these arrangements, and every fliing oa. 
the earth is physicaFFy subservieirf to them, Bat, ifi 
smimal or^mzations^ we find a set of poweis dif- 
ferent from those which characterize inert mkieralft 
lor plants. An a«iraal has his own powers of I'oco- 
motion — he moves on his own centre of gravity — 
and, though the earth is his stage and the place of 
his origin, yet he is an independent Mieroeosm. To 
assist his loco-motion, to enable him to determine 
his course, to preserve his being, and to choose 
between what is good for him, and what is evil to 
him; be is provided with senses, with whieh he 
sees, bears, smells, tastes, and feels; with memory; 
and with powers of reasoning hy analogy, or hi? 
senses and his experience would be useless : and yet 
Mjen say, that such a creature is as much the patient 
of physical causes, as a stone or a plant ! On th^ 
contrary, is it not evident, that an animal possesses 
peculiar powers of sense and reason, in order that he 
may not be the patient and victim of physical' circum- 



IfR0M LONDOI^ to &EW. 24B 

astrologers (said I) consider the stars a& 
mere indices of pretended fates, or as th^^ 
causes of the events which they are en- 



5tances 1 But, say they, his actions are determined by 
his motives, and these are governed by causes over 
which he has no control; those causes are neces- 
sary, and, therefore, his actions are necessary* 
Triie — but these exterior causes (granting that 
flley afe always neCessSLfy Knks of a chain,) operate 
e^tf ft ihiin ori!y according to his estimiilfe of them, 
irt'iiicti vaiies iii different men, arid in the sfime in^U 
^t difFefent times. The causes, at least as far tfe 
i^egards beings which are really their patients, mity 
be regarded as necessary, and they may govertt 
passive existences with absolute dominion; but ihf 
fell animals they have to encounter the printiple of 
individuality, the feeling of independence, the de- 
i<ire of welUbeirig, and the energies of self-love. 
These, so to speak, enter into an af^^ent witli 
ife causes— a pr()Cess of reasoning takes iplace^a 
decision of judgment is formed — and thafjiid^eut. 
if is which directs the will and the action. In other 
words, an erroneous and varying judgment iater*^ 
poses between the causes and the action ; conse- 
cjuently, however absolute and necessaj-y may be 
the causes, the action governed by an intervening 
imperfect judgment, and a vatyrng estimate of thes« 
causes, is not equally absolute and necess£^ry. tfilEcf 
ten men, or animals, in the same critical situatfeai 



Jl 2 



544 A morning's WAIK 

abled to anticipate by the anticipated mo- 
tions of the^ stars? In nativities, they secniti^^ 
to consider them a& indices ; but, ir^. 
library questions, as causes. They are 
treated as indices in all cases wherein 
arbitrary numbers or measures, or ima- 
ginary points, are introduced ; but deemed 
material causes when particular events are 

and their judgment of the circumstances will lead 
€ach of them to aet differently ;. though the neces- 
sary causes which ought to have governed their 
actions were the same ; but their judgments, their 
knowledge, or their experience, were different, and, 
therefore, their actions. If animals were omni" 
scient, they would have perfect judgments, which 
would exactly accord with the exterior or necessary 
circumstances, by which they might then be said to 
be governed ; or, if they were stones and plants, 
they might be inert patients. But their-s is a mixed 
species of existence, they are neither plants nor 
gods. They have powers which plants have not, 
by which they can freely judge of the means of 
averting many palpable dangers; though theii? 
jwwers of judging are too limited to enable them to 
estimate all circumstances correctly, a^id therefere: 
to move in necessary unison with the imnrntable 
physical laws that govern the changes and the 
fiiotions of inert matter. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 245 

,^aixi to be coincident with actual posi- 
tions. Both hypotheses cannot, however, 
'be well founded ; and his reason will call 
on the astrologer to give up the doctrine 
of indices of fate, and prefer that of 
secondary causes. Here then a still 
greater difficulty presents itself; the causes 
are general, and they must operate on 
the whole earth and all its inhabitants 
alike. A n of cJ and ?, or a A of T? and 
%j (that is, a square aspect of Mars and 
Mercury, or a trine of Saturn and Jupiter, ) 
whenever they happen, are alike appli- 
cable to all the inhabitants and regions of 
the earth. It was plausible to talk of a 
planetary aspect as productive of rain or 
wind, when the geography of the astro- 
loger did not extend beyond the plains of 
Chaldea, or the immediate banks of the 
Nile ; but oar better knowledge of cos- 
mography now teaches us, that, at the 
time of every aspect, every variety of 
season and of weather is prevalent in dif- 
ferent parts of the world ; and every con- 
trariety of fortune is happening to indi- 



^$>6 A mqrnjng's walk 

viduals in all countries. The doctrine 
that tb^ planets are secondary causes, is, 
therefore, not supported by t^e cirqum- 
stances of the phenomena. 

But the astrologers are not cQutent with 
fiatur^l positions, but, like the eastern 
priests with their gods, they assign dif- 
ferent parts of the heavens, and ditferent 
countries, to each planet ; and then found 
prognostics on these locail positions of tht? 
pjanels. It is evident, however, that the 
apparent position of a planet depends on 
the varying ppsition of the earth, and 
that an inferior planet may be in exactly 
ih^ same point of space, and yet be seen 
from the earth in every sign of the zodiac ; 
though, according to the astrologers, it 
-tvQuld in that same place have very dif- 
ferent powers ! This doctrine was ad- 
missible when the earth was considered 
as the centre of the universe ; when the 
geocentric phenomena were considered as 
a,bsolute; and vvhen the apparently quick 
and slow motions, the retrogradations, and 
the stationary positions,, wcrv ascribed to 



^FROM l^Of^nvm TO KEW. 24T 

!ea prices <i)f tlie planets theraseWes, or to 
fBDtives of tbeir prkise moy<er, Bnd thejTe-^ 
fore were received as sigas of corres^ 
ponding events and fates ! 

But tbe radical j^rror of the art of pre* 
diction is more deeply seated than -we are 
commonly aware of. There is a chanee, 
however difficult it may be in all caaes 
te reduce it to arithmetical precision, that 
»ny possible event may happen to a par- 
ticular person. No possible event can 
indeed he conceited, that, with regard tp 
a particular person, is not within the 
range of arithmetical probability; while 
all the probable events, such as pre- 
dictors announce, are within very iiarrow 
limits. As 341 example, I assume, that, 
of any hundred ordinary events of human 
life, it may be an even chance that sixty of 
them will happen, or not happen ; and, of 
the other forty, it may be as SO to 1 that 
10 of them will happen; as 10 to X that 
other 10 will happen; as .1 to 10 that 
other 10 will happen ; and as 1 to £0 
that the other 10 will happen. Then, by 



248 A morning's walk 

averaging all these chances, it will be 
found that it is an even chance that the 
whole will happen, or will not happen; ^r 
or, in other words, that half will happen, I 
and that half will not happen. If, there- 
fore, a dextrous person foretel one hun- 
dred events, by means of any prognos- 
ticating key, or any index whose powers ; 
are previously settled, — w^hether stars^^- 
cards, sediments of tea, lines of the hand- 
or forehead, entrails of animals, or dreams, 
signs or omens, — by the doctrine of chances 
it is an even, or some_ other fixed 
chance, that half, or some other portion, 
of such events will come to pass. Su^. 
perstition will triumph if only 1 in 5, or . 

1 in 10, happen as foretold: but, if 1 in,;, 

2 or 3 should happen by neutralizing or 
generalizing the predictions, then the pro- 
phet is accounted a favourite of Heaven, 
or a familiar of Satan ! For this purpose 
it signifies not w4iat it is that constitutes 
the key of fate ; it will sufficiently deceive 
the practitioner, if it relieve him from the 
responsibility of his announcements; and, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 24^ 

if he prudently announce none but events 
highly probable, he will himself be asto-^ 
nisb^d at the apparent verity of his art ! 
In truth, he is all the while but the dupe 
of arithmetic ; and a cool examination 
would shew him that, for the most part, 
it is an even chance that any predicted 
^event will happen, which has been fore- 
told by any key, or sign, or token. The 
planets, the signs of the zodiac, &c. serve 
as one set of these keys, or indices — 
dreams serve as another — the entrails of 
animals have been used as another — signs, 
noises, omens, tokens, sympathies, &c. 
are a fruitful source — lines of the hand, 
forehead, wrist, Sec. are others — moles, 
marks, &c. furnish others — cards afford 
a rich variety — and the sediments of tea- 
cups, and I know not what besides, serve 
as means of announcing events by 
pre-arranged laws of association. The 
half, or more than halfi of such events, 
must however necessarily happen by the 
averages of chances ; and this unascertained 
and unsuspected coincidence has from age 



€^ A morning's walk 

to age countenanced and confirmed Ihi; 
delusion. 

Ail that a prophet or fortune-teller re- 
• quires, therefore, is some set oi indices^ to 
^ach of which be can assign particular 
powers and significations, and then be 
able so to vary their order as to give tbena 
new and endless combinations, representing 
the fortunes of all mankind. When va- 
ried for a particular individual, he has 
merely to apply to that person the pro- 
bable events indicated by the new com- 
binations; and, according to the lavv of 
chances, he must necessarily succeed in'^ 
certain proportion of his prognostics, be- 
cause it is within a certain numerical 
chance that any possible event will happen 
to any individual. The prognosticator 
in these cases is deceived, because he is 
solely directed by the order of his indices. 
As he finds that he has been enabled 
to foretel by their means a certain number 
of events, he conceives either that these 
indices must govern the fates; that the 
finger of Providence or the agency of the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. f^l 

Devil governed his indices ; or, with many 
grave writers, that there is a soul of the 
world which harmonizes all things, pro- 
ducing an accordance between the for- 
TUNi:s of the uuman race and th^ 
sediments of tea-cups, the arrangements 
of cards, the aspects and positions of the 
planets, the lines in the hand or forehead, 
the indications of dreams, and the pp- 
irgkiis of aflimals ! On the other hand, the 
dt^pe§ of thesp prognostics, when fortun^tej, 
often direct their best exertions to fglfil 
them; or, when unfortunate, they sink into 
a feeling of despondency, which leads to 
their fulfilment. And, should one in ten of 
t\^ predicted events take place, they be^ 
cppie firm believers in the doctrines of 
fatality, necessity, and other superstitions; 
*'fGr,'' say they^ '^how could an event be 
foretold, if it had not been irrevocably de- 
creed that it must happen?" What a pow^er- 
ful handle for priestTcraft, state-craft, ^nd 
all the crafts by which mankind have been 
aJbjjsed in every age of the world ! 

That this exposition of the true cause of 
5 



#52 A MORNING^S WA1« 

^e popular errors, iri regard to any sup* 
posed connexion between certain acci- 
dents of matter, and unconnected future 
events, will not be without its uses, must 
be evident from the known influence which 
5ome of the means of prognostication pos- 
sess over every rank of society. Such 
scenes as that described in the Spectator, 
\\here so mucii unhappiness w^as created 
by spilling the salt, are still realized every 
day in nearly every family in Great Bri- 
tain. All phenomena which cannot easily 
be accounted for, and hundreds of trivial 
incidents, are considered by the gravest 
as portentous signs of events to come. 
The coincidence of any event and its 
prognostic, though it might have been ten 
to one that it would happen, is received 
lis evidence of their connexion, which it 
would be impiety to laugh at! But need 
I quote a more striking instance than the 
«till prodigious annual sale of 200,000 of 
Paitridge's and Moore^s Almanacks, whose 
recommendations are their prognostica- 
tions, and which a few years since lost 



PROM LONDON TO KEW. ^53 

most of their patrons, because the Sta- 
tioners' Company, in the edition of the 
jear, left out the predictions as an ex- 
periment on the pubHc wisdom ! 

In returning from the tomb of Par- 
tridge, I beheld another, dear to patriot-^ 
ism and civic glory, that of Alderman 
Barber, Lord-mayor of Lonxion in 1733. 
His memory is still cherished among aged 
citizens, and the cause is- recorded in the 
fallowing inscription : — 

** Under tbk stone were laid the remains of John 
Barber, esq. alderman of London, a constant 
benefactor to the poor, true to his principles ia 
church- and state. He preserved his integrity, and 
discharged the duty of an upright magistrate. Zea» 
k)us for the rights of his fellow citizensy he opposed 
sH attempts against them; and, being lord mayor 
iji the year 1733, he defeated a scheme of a general 
Excise, whiclv had it succeeded, would liave put aii. 
tnd to tlie liberties of his country." 

Virtuous citizen ! Happy was it that 
thou didst not live to suffer the mortifi' 
cation of seeing thy degraded country 
devoured by .s^varras of excisemen, and 
the third of its population fattening on* 



the taxes collected fr'om the athef tW0- 
thinh. Tdor justly didst thou antrcipafe 
that the terror^ and corruptions growing 
out of such an inquisition as the excise?, 
woufd cfestroy that sturdy spirit of iilde- 
petidence, which in thy day constiTut€<^ 
thd cfifrcf glo'ry of the English country*^ 
getttlemari and London merchants Till 
rt was broken oi' underniined by the evil 
genius of Taxation, that spirit served .a3 
the basis of Britain's prosperity; but rtawy 
^las \ if seems to be extinguished for 
ever. — Patriotic Lord-mayor of London \ 
In thy day to watch with jealousy the 
ncver-ceasinij encroachments of the res^al 
pferogatives, and to render the ministers 
of the crown accountable at the bar of 
public opinion, were paths of honour 
leading to the highest civic distinctions ! 
Many of the race that conducted to a 
wise end the glorious revolution of 168S 
then survived — the genius of liberty con- 
tinued to inspire the sons of Britain — the 
holy fiame that punished two kings for 
trespassing on the rights of their people, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. f!59^ 

wag not eBtirety extingdished — the deadly 
pttratysk of the Septennial Act had riot 
then produced- its blighting effects on the 
whofk body politic* But London ceased 
to be Muenced by the lost voice of 
Barber, and the Excise system tri- 
umpted — the barriers of freedom were 
passed — trial by jury was, in certain cases^ 
either dispensed with, or nullified by well- 
wmmd special juries — the public judg- 
meni was misled by venal conductorSr of 
tlie public pre^s— patriotism was deemed 
faction— liberty was^ held up as another 
iMme for rebettion-^and, in consequence,. 

.:P^Ol§rY-FI^E YKARS GF FOREIGN; WAR 
\mm • 4isgPftced S E V i;iS"E Y-FiVE YEAR^ 

£rf our aiatwds, though thirty years of 
foreign wur served in the preceding three 
lii^ndred years to vindicate every British 
interest !— Venerated name of Barber ! 
Whe"i?e is the monument to be found in 
ikt public buildings of London, to record 
thy l^irtucs for the example of others ? 
"Would it not be ^ worthy companion to 
the statues &f Beck£oi^d and Chatham ? 



SM A MORJflNG's WALK 

And Would it not keep in countenart^e 
the honest exertions of the Wailhraans#- 
Woods — and Goodbeheres— who in our 
days have trod in thy steps, and whoj 'it 
may be hoped, will have a long line ol'sa%- 
cessors in the same honourable carei^r?^. 
Being anxious to view the inside ^'i5f 
Mortlake church, a boy undertook to 
fetch the key from the house of the; sex- 
ton. In the mean time I examined arauiKl 
me the humble monuments raised^iiy^^ 
Action to the memory of the dead^j fll^ 
-were the pyramid, the obelisk, and^-llfe 
tumulus, in their most diminutive f<5n*^. 
Here lay decomposed the mineral parts of 
those ancestors from whom ^heicontem- 
porary generation have sprung. Yes, 
said I, we truly are all of one nature, and 
one family ; and we suffer a common late I 
We burst as germs into organization, we 
swell by a common progress into maturity, 
and we learn to measure by motion what 
we call Time, till, our motions and our time 
ceasing, we are thus laid side by ^ide, ge- 
neration after generation, serving as ex- 



TROM LONDON TO KEVV. 257 

anoples of a similar futurity to those who 
spring from us, and succeed us. 

I reflected that, as it is now more than 
four hundred years since this ground be- 
came the depository of the dead, some 
of its earliest occupants might, without 
an hyperbole, have been ancestors of the 
whole cotemporary English nation. If we 
suppose that a man was buried in this 
church-yard 420 years ago, who left six 
children, each of whom had three children, 
who again had, on an average, the same 
number in every generation of thirty 
years; then, in 420 years, or fourteen 
generations, his descendants might be mul- 
tiplied as under : 

1st generation . . • . 6 
2nd . . . . . . .18 

3rd ....... 54 

4th 162 

5th ...... . 485 

6th . . . . • . 1458 

7th 4374 

8th 13122 

9th $9366 



^5S A MGRNTN<J'S WALK 

10th generation ; . 118098 
11th ... . . . 354274 

12th ..... 1062812 

13th ... . . 3188436 

14th 9563308 

That is to say, nine millions and 
A HALF of persons; or, as nearly as pos- 
sible, the exact population of South Bri- 
tain, might at this day be descended in a 
direct line from any individual buried in 
this or any other church-yard in the year 
1395, who left six children, each of whose 
descendants have had on the average three 
children ! And, by the same law, every 
individual who has six children may be 
the root of as many descendants within 
420 years, provided they increase on the 
low average of only three in every branch. 
His descendants would represent an in- 
verted triangle, of which he would con- 
stitute the lower angle. 

To place the same position in another 
point of view, I calculated also that every 
individual now living must have had for 
his ancestor every parent in Britain living 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 259 

in the year 1125, the age of Henry the 
First, taking the population of that period 
at 8,000,000. Thus, as every individual 
must have had a father and a mother, or 
two progenitors, each of whom had a 
father and a mother, or four progenitors, 
each generation would double its pro- 
genitors every thirty years. Every person 
living may, therefore, be considered as the 
apex of a triangle, of which th^ base 
would represent the whole population of 



a remote age. 






,1815, 


Livin 


g individual 


. . 1 


,.. J7S5, 


Hisi 


ather and mother 2. 


1755, 


Their 


• fathers and mothers 4 


vvi^-1725, 




. ditto . 


... . 8. 


1695, 


* • 


. ditto . 


. . 16 


:.jl665, 


• " • 


. ditto . 


. . 32 


1635, 


, , 


. ditto . 


. . 64 


1605, 


. • 


. ditto . 


. 128 


. 1575, 


. • 


. ditto . 


. . 256 


1545, 


• . 


. ditto . 


. . 512 


1515, 


. 


. ditto . 


. 1024 


1485, 


, 


. ditto . 


. 2048 


1455, 


• « 


. ditto . 

s 2 


. 4096 



S60 



A MORNINGS WALK 



1 425, Their fathers & mothers 8 1 92 



^395, 


. . . ditto . 


. 16384 


1365, 


. . . ditto 


. . 32768 


1335, 


. . . ditto . 


. 65536 


1305, 


. . . ditto 


. 131072 


1^75, 


. . . ditto 


. 262144 


1245, 


, . . ditto 


. 524288 


1215, . 


. . ditto . 


1048576 


1185, . 


. . ditto . 


2097152 


1155, . 


. . ditto . 


4194304 


1125, . 


. . ditto . 


8388608 


That is to sa^ 


f, if there have been a regu 



co-mixture of marriages, every individual 
of the living race must of necessity be 
descended from parents who lived in Bri- 
tain in 1125. Some districts or clans may 
require a longer period for the co-mixture, 
and different circumstances may cut off 
some families, and expand others; but, in 
general, the lines of families would cross 
each other, -and become interwoven like 
the lines of lattice-woi'k, A single inter- 
mixture, however remote, would unite all 
the subsequent branches in common an- 
cestry, rendering the cotemporaries of 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 261 

«very nation members of one expanded 
family, after the lapse of an ascertainable 
number of generations ! 

This principle is curious ; and, though 
in one view it has been applied to calcu- 
lations of increasing population, yet I am 
not aware that it has previously received 
the moral application which I draw from 
it, in regard to the commixture of the hu- 
man race. My ideas may be better con- 
ceived, . if any person draw two parallel 
iirifes to represent the respective contem- 
porary populations of two distinct epochs ; 
and then set up on the lower line an 
indefinite number of triangles. In this 
scheme we shall have a just picture of the 
progressive generations of every nation, 
and we may observe how necessarily, in 
spite of artifice and pride, they must, by 
intermarriages, be blended as one family 
and one flesh, owing to the individuals of 
each pair springing from a different apex, 
and to every side being necessarily crossed 
by the sides of other triangles. By a 
converse reasoning, or by tracing the lines 
s 3 



262 A morning's walk 

from the apex to the base, we may trace 
the descent as well as the ascent; and, 
by a glance of the eye, ascertain not only 
that every individual of a living genera- 
tion must be descended from the whole of 
the parents of some generation sufficiently 
remote, but that every parent in such re- 
mote generation must necessarily have 
been the ancestor of every individual of a 
contemporary generation. 

If, during the Crusades, any of the 
English intermarried with Greeks^ or Sy^ 
rians, or Italians, all of w^hom must^ by 
intermingling, have been descendants of 
the great men of antiquity, so all the Eng- 
lish of this age must be connected ra 
blood with those intermarriages, and be 
descended from the heroes of the classic 
ages. But let not pride triumph in this 
consideration ; for every malefactor in 
every age, who left children, was equally an 
ancestor of the living race ! The ancient 
union of France and England, and of 
Belgium and Germany with England, 
must have rendered those people near of 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 2^3 

kin ; while each adjoining nation, mixing 
with its neighbours, must have blended 
the whole human race in one great family 
of remote common origin. This reason^ 
ing explains the cause of national phy- 
siognomy and character, the co-mixture 
of foreign nations being inconsiderable, 
and not sufficient to effect general cha- 
racteristic changes ; while each nation 
becomes, in the course of ages, one com- 
mon and blended family, in physiognomy, 
character, and genius. May so plain a 
demonstration of this great truth be the 
means of promoting their concord, their 
love, the interchange of mutual good 
offices, and their common happiness ! 

The messenger having brought the ke}^, 
I was admitted into Mortlake church, the 
first" glance of whose venerable structure 
carried my imagination back through many 
distant ages, and generated a multitude of 
interesting associations. Every part of the 
building bore an air of antique simplicity ; 
and it seemed truly worthy of being the 



254 'A morning's WAI^' 

place where the inhabitants of a village 
ought to meet periodically to receive les* 
sons of moral instruction, and pour forth 
their thanksgivings to the First Cause of 
the effects which daily operate on them as so 
many blessings. Happy system !— *so well 
adapted to the actual condition of society^ 
and so capable, when well directed, of pro*- 
ducing the most salutary effects on the 
temper and habits of the people. Thrice 
happy man, that parish- priest, who feels 
the extent and importance of his duties, 
and performs them for their own reward, 
not as acts of drudgery, or to gratify 
selfish feelings ! Enviable seat, that pul- 
pit, where power is conferred by law and 
by custom, of teaching useful truths, and 
of conveying happiness, through the force 
of principles, to the fire -sides of so 
many families 1 Delightful picture ! — what 
more, or what better, could wisdom con- 
trive ?— A day of rest — a place sanctified 
for instruction — habits of attendance — -a 
teacher of worth and zeal— his precepts 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 26^ 

(sirried from the church to the fire-side — 
and there regulating and governing all the 
actions and relations of life ! 
Ic Such, however, is the composition of 
the picture, only as seen on a sunny day ! 
Alas ! the passions and weaknesses of men 
deny its frequent realization ! Authorised 
instructors cannot enjoy the reputation of 
superior wisdom without being excited by 
vaeity, and led to play the fool — they can - 
iiot understand two or three dialects with* 
otit becoming coxcombs — they cannot wear 
a robe of office without being uplifted by 
pride — and they cannot be appointed ex- 
pounders of the simple elements of mo- 
rals, without fancying themselves in pos- 
session of a second sight, and discovering 
2L double sense in every text of Scripture 1 
From this weakness of human nature arise 
most of the mysteries which discredit reli- 
gion, — hence the incomprehensible jargon 
of sects — hence the substitution of the sha- 
dow of faith for the substance of good 
works — hence the distraction of the peo- 
ple on theological subjects — and hence, 



266 A morning's walk 

in fine, its too common inefficacy and in- 
sufficiency in preserving public morals, 
evinced, among other bad effects, in its 
tolerance of vindictive Christian wars. 

I appeal, therefore, to conscientious 
teachers of the people, whether it is not 
their duty to avoid discussions in the 
pulpit on mysteries which never edify, 
because never understood ; and to confine 
their discourses to such topics as those 
indicated in the Sermon of Jesus on the 
Mount, Such, at least, appears to be the 
proper duty of a national establishment ! 
Empirics may raise the fury of fanaticism 
about mysteries with impunity — every ab- 
surdity may, for its season, be embodied 
in particular congregations — and infidelity, 
of all kinds, may be proclaimed at the cor- 
ners of the streets without danger, pro- 
vided the NATIONAL CHURCH be found- 
ed on the broad principles of virtue, and 
on the practice of those morals which are 
so beautifully expounded in the New Tes^ 
tament ; and provided the parochial clergy 
do not mix themselves with those vision- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW, 267 

ary topics which depend for success more 
on zeal and credulity, than on argument 
or reason. Such a church must flourish, 
as long as common sense, and a respect 
for virtue, govern the majority. In this 
view, I lament, however, that a revision 
has not taken place of those articles of 
faith which were promulgated in the six- 
teenth century, by men newly converted, 
and perhaps but half converted, from the 
Romish faith, and taught to a people 
then unprepared to receive all the changes 
which reason demanded. As a friend, 
therefore, to that religion which preserves 
the public morals, I hope to live to see 
many of those articles qualified w^hich 
treat of mysteries conceived in the dark 
ages of monkish superstition, and coun- 
tenanced by scholastic logic; considering 
that such qualification would probably 
lead to greater concord in matters of the 
highest importance to society, and. serve 
to establish the Anglican Church on the 
immoveable bases of reason and truth. 
It seems, indeed, to be high time that 



$^S A morning's walk 

Protestant churches, of all denominations, 
should come to some agreement in regard 
to the full extent of the errors which, 
during twelve centuries, were introduced 
into the Christian religion by the craft 
or ignorance of the Church of Rome. 
Did the early reformers detect the whole 
of them ? And, if in the opinion of 
discreet persons they did not, or, as is 
reasonable to suppose, they could not, 
is it not important to examine coff-' 
scientious doubts, and to restore the re- ' 
ligion of Christ, which we profess, to 
its original purity, and to the oni^y 

STANDARD OF TRUTH, which God liaS 

given to man, the light of his ex-" 

PERI EN CE AND REASON. 

Such were the considerations that forced 
themselves upon me, as I paced the aisles 
of this sanctuary of religion. Nor could 
I avoid reflecting on the false associations 
which early prejudices attach to such en- - 
closures of four walls. By da}^, they are 
an object of veneration ; by night, an 
object of terror. Perhaps no person in 



FROM LO^N'DON TO KEW. 2^9 

Mortlake would singly pass a long night 
in this solemn structure, for the fee-simple 
of half the town ! The objects of their 
fears none could, or would, justify; yet 
the anticipated horrors of passing a night 
in a church seems universal ! Perhaps 
some expect, that the common elemen- 
tary principles which once composed the 
bodies of the decomposed dead, would, 
for the occasion, be collected again from 
the general storehouse of the atmosphere 
and earth, and would exhibit themselves, 
on their re-organization, more hurtful 
thm at first. Perhaps others expect that 
some of those unembodied spirits, with 
which mythology and priestcraft have in, 
all ages deluded the vulgar, — though no 
credible evidence or natural probability 
was ever adduced of the existence or ap- 
pearance of any such spirits, — -would 
without bodies appear to their visual or- 
gans, and torment or injure them ! — Yes 
^—monstrous and absurd though it be — 
such are the prevalent weaknesses created 
by superstition, and wickedly instilled inta- 



270 A morning's walk 

infant minds in the nursery, so as. to go*- 
vern the feelings and conduct of ninety- 
nine of every hundred persons in our com- 
paratively enlightened society. 

It should now be well, understood, that 
what is contrary to uniform experience 
ought to be no object of faith — conse- 
quently what no man ever saw, none 
need expect to see — and what never did 
harm, none need fear ! In this view, our 
poets might aid the work of public educa- 
tion, by dispensing with their machinery 
of ideal personages, as tending to keep 
alive that superstition, which a Worps- 
WORTH has recently proved to be un- 
necessary, in a poem that rivals the efforts 
of the Rosicrucian school. Ought not 
the ghosts of Shakespeare to be supposed 
mei'ely as the effects of diseased vision, or 
a guilty imagination ? Ought an enlight- 
ened audience to tolerate the mischievous 
impressions produced on the minds of 
ignorance or youth by the gross exhibi- 
tions which now disgrace our stage in 
Hamlet, Richard, and Macbeth ? We all 
1 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 271 

know that fever of the brain produces 
successions of spectres or images, the re- 
sult of diseased organs ; but no one ever 
conceived that such melancholy effects of 
disease could be seen by healthy by- 
standers, till our stage-managers availed 
themselves of vulgar credulity, and dared 
to give substance to diseased ideas as a 
means of gratifying their avarice? If 
Shakespeare intended to give visible sub- 
stance to his numerous ghosts, he merely 
conformed himself to the state of know- 
ledge in his day, when Demonology was 
sanctioned by royal authorit}^, and when 
the calendars at the assizes were filled 
with victims of superstition, under charges 
of witchcraft ! It is, however, time that 
we banish such credulity from the minds 
even of the lowest vulgar, as disgrace- 
ful to religion, education, morals, and 
reason ! 

Humanly speaking, I exclaimed — Am I 
not in the House of God? Is not this 
puny structure a tribute of man to the 
Architect of the Universe? What a lesson 



272 A morning's WALK 

for man's pride! — look at this building, 
and behold the Universe ! Man is but a 
point of infinite space, with intellectual 
powers, bound in their sphere of action 
to his body, and subject with it to the 
laws of motion and gravitation ! For such 
a being this may properly be the house of 
God; but it ought never to be forgotten, 
that the only house of God is a universe 
as boundless as his powers, and as eternal 
as his existence 1 In relation to man and 
man's pride, what a sublime and over- 
w^helming contrast is presented by tb^ 
everlasting now, and the universal heeeI 
Yet how can the creature of mere rela- 
tions, who exists by generating time, 
space, and other sensations, conceive irf 
the immutable cause of causes, to 
whom his past and future, and his above 
and below, are as a single totalitit 1 
Wisest of men is he who knows the 
most of such a Being; but, chained to a 
point, and governed in all our reasoning 
by mere relative powers, we can only 
conceive of ubiquity by the contrast of 



FROM I.Oiri)6i^ TO KEW. 273 

oixr lacallty — of infinity by our dimtn- 
siohs — of eternity by our duration — and 
oi omniscience hy our reason! Creatures 
©f yesterday, surrounded by blessings, it 
is natural we should inquire in regard to 
^' origin and cause of the novel state 
in which we find ourselves; but X\\q finite 
cannot reason on the infinite — the traji- 
stent on the eternal — or the local on the 
universal; and on such subjects all we 
can ascertain, is the utter inadequacy of 
oyr powers to perceive them clearly. It 
seems, therefore, to be our duty to en- 
joy, to WONDER, and to worship. 

On every side of me I beheld records 
of -the wrecks of man, deposited here 
merely fc^ increase the sympathy of tb# 
living for the place. Perhaps I was even- 
breathing some of the gaseous effluviat 
which once composed their living bodies : 
tot, the gas of a human body differing 
in no respect from the gas generated in 
the great laboratory of the earth's surface, 
which 1 breathe hourly; and being in 
itself innoxious in quantity, if not in 

T 



274? A morning's WALK 

quality, 1 felt no qualms from my consci- 
ousness of its source. The putrefactive 
process decomposes the bodies of all ani- 
mals, and returns their generic principles 
to the common reservoirs of carbon, hy- 
drogen, nitrogen, and oxygen: through 
life, the same process, varied in its pro- 
portions, is going forward ; and the body 
is constantly resolving itself into the ge- 
neric principles of nature, which generic 
principles again serve the purposes of 
respiration in other animals, and renew 
other existences as suitably as though 
they had never before been employed for 
the same purposes. Hence it is probable 
that the identical atoms composing any 
of the elements of nature, may haVe 
existed in hundreds of different animals 
in different ages of the world ; and hence 
we arrive at a principle of metempsy- 
chosis, without entangling ourselves in 
the absurdities with which priestcraft 
among the Eastern nations has clothed 
and disguised it. 

Various tablets placed around the walls 
3 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 275 

record departed worth in many persons 
of distinction. I could find no memo- 
rials of the impostor Dee, whose aged 
remains were deposited here. He was 
one of the last of the race of those men 
of science who made use of his knowledge 
to induce the vulgar to believe him a con- 
juror, or one possessed of the power of 
conversing with spirits. His journals 
of this pretended intercourse were pub- 
lished after his death, by one of the Ca- 
saubons, in two folio volumes. Lilly's 
Memoirs record many of his impostures, 
and there is no doubt but in his time the 
public mind was much agitated by his ex- 
travagancies. The mob more than once 
destroyed his house, for being familiar 
with their devil; and, what is more ex- 
traordinary, he was often consulted, and 
even employed in negociations, by Queen 
Ehzabeth. He pretended to see spirits 
in a small stone, lately preserved with his 
papers in the British Museum. His spirits 
appear to have had bodies and garments 
thick enough to reflect rays of light, though 
T fl 



5?7^ A morning's walk 

they passed freely in and out of his stone, 
and tlirough the walls of his room ; and 
organs for articulation, which they exercised 
within the glass ! How slight an advance 
in knowledge exposes all such impostures ! 
In his spiritual visions, Dee had a con- 
federate of the name of Kelly, who, of 
course, confirmed all the oracles of his 
master. Both, however, in spite of their 
spiritual friends, died miserably — the man 
by leaping out of a window, and the 
master in great poverty. Dee is the less 
excusable, because he was a man of fa- 
mily and considerable learning, a fellow 
of Trinity-college, Cambridge, and a good 
mathematician. But, in an age in which 
one Queen imprisoned him for practising 
by enchantment against her life, and her 
successor required him to name a lucky 
day for her coronation, is it to be won- 
dered that a mere man, like tens of thou- 
sands of our modern religious fanatics, 
persuaded himself that he was possessed 
of supernatural powers? 

Beneath the same pavement, resolved 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 277 

into kindred elements, though when ia 
chemical union so different a totahty, lie 
the remains of that illustrious patriot, Sir 
John Barnard, who passed a long life in 
opposing the encroachments on liberty of 
the ministers of the first and second of the 
Gu EL PHS. His statue in the Royal Ex- 
change, London, would attest his worth, 
if the same area was not disgraced by 
another, of the infamous Charles the Se- 
cond, thereby confounding virtue and 
vice. Sir John, like Alderman Barber, 
acquired fame by his opposition to the 
Excise Laws, and by other exertions in 
defence of public liberty. I have been 
told by one who still remembers him, that 
he was an active little man, adored by 
the Common Hall, and much respected 
by various political parties for his long- 
tried worth. 

On the south side of the Communion- 
table, I was so well pleased with some 
verses lately placed on a marble tablet, 
to record the virtues of the Viscountess 
Sidmouth, who died June 23, 1811, that 
T 3 



278 A morning's walk 

I could not refrain from copying them. 
The Viscount and his family have a pew 
in the church, and, I am told, are constant 
attendants at the morning-service on 
Sundays. 

Not that to mortal eyes thy spotless life 

Sliew'd the best form of parent, child, and wife ; 

Not that thy vital current seem'd to glide, 

Clear and unmix'd, through the world's troublous 

tide ; 
That grace and beauty, forraM each heart to win, 
Seem'd but the casket to the gem within : 
Not hence the fond presumption of our love. 
Which lifts the spirit to the Saints above ; 
But that pure Piety's consoling pow'r 
Thy life illum'd, and cheer'd thy parting hour; 
That each best gift of charity was thine. 
The liberal feeling and the grace divine ; 
And e'en thy virtues humbled in the dust. 
In Heav'n's sure promise was thine only trust : 
Sooth'd by that hope, AtFection checks the sigh. 
And hails the day-spring of eternity. 

Whenever the remains of the lord of 
this amiable woman are deposited on 
the same spot, I venture humbly and 
respectfully to suggest, that the tablet to 
his memory should include a copy of the 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 279 

most eventful document of his life and 
times. He was prime-minister when, in 
March 1803, the ever-to-be-lamented 
message charging the French with making 
extensive military preparations in the 
ports of France and Holland, was ad- 
vised by the ministry to be sent to both 
Houses of Parliament. During the ^ past 
year he had obtained the glory of con- 
cluding a treaty which restored tranquilhty 
to a suffering world ; and yet the viru- 
lence of a contemptible Opposition, and 
the empirical pretensions of an Ex-mi- 
nister, led him and his colleagues tardily 
to execute the article which was to re- 
store Malta to its Knights. A demand 
that this article should be executed, led 
to discussions since made public, but 
which, in my opinion, have not justified the 
dbaracter given of them in the message. 
Nor does it appear that the English am- 
bassador at Paris had inquired or re- 
monstrated with the French Government 
on the subject of the pretended military 
preparations. The flame, however, wasL 



'?80 A IHORNING'S WALK 

thus kindled, which spread in due time 
from kingdom to kingdom ; covering the 
whole earth with blood and desolation, 
wasting millions of lives in battle, siege, 
imprisonment, or massacre ; and trans- 
ferring all the rentals and industry of the 
people of England to the public creditors, 
to pay the interest of loans and other 
consequent obligations of the state ! 

Unhappily the genius of truth was 
hoodwinked at the time, by the general 
corruption of the press; and the spirit 
of PATRIOTISM was overawed by the 
passionate clamours of a whole people 
to be avenged for various alledged af- 
fronts ! But at this distance of time these 
are merely topics for the lamentation of 
history ! It is now, I fear, too late to in- 
stitute legislative inquiries; but the case 
will remain as a beacon to all people, who 
should be taught by it to consider minis- 
ters of the Crown, though as amiable in 
private Hfe as an x'\DniNGTON, as fallible 
men, liable to be misled by intrigue or pas- 
sion, and therefore, in a public sense, not 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 281 

to be credited without other evidence than 
their own assertions. Let an exemplary 
INSCRIPTION on the tomb of the mi- 
tiister of that day serve therefore to teach 
all ministers, never wilfully to depart in the 
most indifferent act of public policy from 
THE TRUTH ; and warn them to pause be- 
fore they commit the extensive interests 
of nations, while they or the people are 
under the influence of passion. Alas 1 
^Jrhat frightful mischiefs might have been 
■^averted if these considerations had govern- 
^^d the English people, or the English mi- 
^feistry, during the fatal discussions of Lord 
^"Whitworth at Paris ! 
^^- In charity, I hope the Ministry believed 
'that this dispute might have ended with 
a mere demonstration; and I admit that 
no man can foresee all the consequences 
of an action: yet, as the feelings which 
"excited that message and directed those 
deliberations, continued to influence the 
Ministry during twelve years warfare, 
and led to the rejection of seven overtures 
for peace, made at different times by 
Napoleon; the character of the aj^e 



282 A morning's walk 

and the future security of the world 
against wars of aggression, seem to re- 
quire that the origin of the late war 
should even yet become an object of so- 
lemn parliamentary inquiry. The Crown 
may have the constitutional power of de- 
claring war, but the ministers of the 
Crown are responsible for the abuse of 
that power; and let it be remembered, that 
the origin of every war is easily tried by 
tests to be found in Grotius, Puffen- 
DORF, Vattel, or other authorities on 
the law^s of nations ; and that, without the 
combination of justice and necessity in its 
origin, no true glory can be acquired in 
its progress or in its results.* 

I learnt with regret that the improved 

* While these pages were printing, the Comnaon 
CoMneil of London, the second deliberative assenably 
in the empire, have presented an address to the 
Throne, in which thej describe the late devastating 
Wars as " RASH AND RUINOUS, UNJUSTLY 
COMMENCED, AND PERTINACIOUSLY 
PERSISTED IN, WHEN NO RATIONAL OB- 
JECT WAS TO BE OBTAINED;" and they add, 
that "IMMENSE SUBSIDIES WERE GRANTED 
^rO FOREIGN POWERS TO DEFEND THEIR 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 283 

Psalmody of Gardiner had not yet 
been introduced . into the service of this 

OWN TERRITORIES, OR TO COMMIT 
AGGRESSIONS ON THOSE OF THJEIR 
NEIGHBOURS." No friend of Truth could wish 
to see a more correct historical record of these 
melancholy events; and, whether the authors of 
them are allowed to drop into the grave by the 
course of nature, or should expiate their offences on 
a scaffold, there is not likely to be much difference 
of opinion about them in the year three thou- 
sand EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTEEN. Per- 
haps FIVE MILLIONS of men, and as many women 
and children, have fallen victims, in the space of 
twenty-five years, to attempts, as visionary as wicked, 
to destroy by the sword the assertion of Principles 
of Political Justice, which necessarily grew out of 
the cultivation of reason, and which were corollaries of 

that INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY ofwhichBACON 

laid the foundation, and which has been matured 
by Selden, Coke, Milton, Sidney, Locke, 

BOLINGBROKE, MONTESQUIEU, BLACKSTONE, 

Rousseau, D'Alembert, Hume, De Lolme, 
MiRABEAU, and Fox. Rights of social man de- 
rived from such sources cannot be overwhelmed, 
though a divided people may have been overpowered, 
though hated dynasties may have been restored, and 
though Popery, the order of Jesuits, and the Holy 
Inquisition, may for a season have resumed their 
ascendency. 



284 A morising's walk 

church, and that the drawhng monkish 
tunes are preferred to those sublime pas- 
sages of Haydn, Mozart, and BeeJlfc 
hoven, which that gentleman has so in- 
geniously adapted to the Psalms of David. 
It might have been expected that every 
church in the enlightened vicinage of the 
metropolis would, ere this, have adopt^4^ 
a means of exalting the spirit of devotion, 
which has received the high sanction of 
the Regent and the Archbishop of Ca,nT^; 
terbury, and which exhibits among i|^ 
patrons nearly the whole bench of bishopfg 
I suspect, indeed, that the shops of the 
mere trading Methodists attract as many 
auditors by their singing as by theii* 
preaching; consequently, enlarged churchjep^ 
and improved psalmody would seryqij^i 
protect many of the people from becoming 
the dupes of that cant and craft of 
FANATICISM, which is so disgraceful ,tQ 
the age. so dangerous to rehgion, and 
so inimical to the progress of truth and 
l<:nowledge. 

Viewing this church in a statistical 
point of view, 1 counted 85 pews, capable 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 2SS 

of holding about 550 persons, and I learnt 
that about 100 charity-school and other 
children sit in the aisles. Hence, per- 
haps, ^00 attend each service; and, if 
300 attend in the afternoon who do not 
itt the morning, then we may calculate 
the attendants on the church-service, in 
this parish, at about 900. The popula- 
tion is, however, about 2100; from which, 
deducting 300 children, it will appear that 
half the inhabitants are dissenters, me- 
thodists, or indifferents. Of these, about 
200 belong to a chapel for the Indepen- 
dents, and perhaps others attend favourite 
preachers in the vicinity. Such are the 
religious divisions of this parish; yet, as 
there are no manufactories, and the clerg}^- 
man is well respected, the attendants on 
the Church may be considered as above 
even the general average of the Establish- 
ment in other parishes. 
'I was induced to ascend into the belfry, 
where I found ropes for eight bells — 
those musical tones, which extend the 
sphere of the Church's influence, by asso- 



2S6 A morning's WALK 

ciations of pleasure, devotion, or melan- 
choly, through the surroundmg country. 
What an effective means of increasing 
the sympathies of religion, and exciting 
them by the fire-sides, and on the very 
pillows of the people ! Who that, as 
bride or bridegroom, has heard them, in 
conjunction with the first joys of wedded 
love, does not feel the pleasurable asso^ 
ciations of their lively peal on other si- 
milar events? Who, that through a series 
of years has obeyed their calling chime dn 
the Sabbath morning, as the signal of 
placid feelings towards his God, and his 
assembled neighbours, does not hear their 
weekly monotony with devotion? And 
who is there that has performed the last 
rites of friendship, or the melancholy du- 
ties of son, daughter, husband, wife, 
father, mother, brother, or sister, under 
the recurring tones of the awful Tenor, 
or more* awful Dumb- peal, and does not 
feel, at every recurrence of the same 
ceremony, a revival of his keen, but un- 
availing, regrets for the mouldering dead? 



FROM LONDON TO KEW, 287 

Thus does art play with our ingenuous 
feelings ; and thus is an importance given 
to the established Church in the con- 
cords of man's nervous system, which ren- 
ders it unnecessary for its priesthood to 
be jealous or invidious towards those who 
dissent from its doctrines for conscience 
sake. In truth, such is the imposing at- 
titude of the national Church, that, if 
the members leave the Church to sit 
under strange pulpits, the incumbent 
should suspect his doctrines, his zeal, 
his talents, or his charity in the collec-^ 
tion of his dues and tithes. What but 
gross misconduct in the priest — what 
but doctrines incompatible with the intel- 
ligence of an enlightened age— or what 
but the odious impost of tithes-in-kind^ 
can separate the people from the building 
where they first heard the name of God, 
and which contains the bones of their 
ancestors? 

In conceding to the ' influence of bells 
so many services to the establishment 
which monopolizes them, I must, how* 



288 A morning's walk 

ever, not forget that the power they pos- 
sess over the nerves, however agreeable 
or interesting in health, is pernicious, and 
often fatal, when the excitability is in 
creased by disease? What medicine can 
allay the fever which is often exasperated; 
by their clangor? What consoling hopfj 
can he feel who, while gasping for breath, 
or fainting from debility, hears a knell, 
in which he cannot but anticipate his 
own ? — Hundreds are thus murdered in 
great cities every year by noisy peals or 
unseasonable knells. Sleep, the antidote 
of diseased action, is destroyed by the one; 
and Hope, the first of cordials, is extia? 
guished by the other. The interesting 
sympathies and services of bells appear to 
be, therefore, too dearly purchased. In all 
countries, death-knells and funeral-tollings 
ought to be entirely abolished ; and even 
the ringing of peals should be liable to he 
interdicted, at the request of any medical 
practitioner. Nor ought the sanctuaries 
of the professed religion of peace and 
charity to be disgraced at any time, by 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 289 

celebrations of those murderous conflicts 
between man and man, which too ofteri 
take place, to gratify the malice and pride 
of WFAK PRINCES, or sustain the avarice 
and false calculations of their wicked 
MINISTERS. Even in justifiable wars of 
self-defence, such as the resistance to the 
unprincipled invasion of William the Nor- 
man, or of the English people against the 
tyrannical Charles, the church of Christ 
ought only to mourn at the unhappy price 
6f the most decisive victory. 

The solemn tick of the parish- clock re- 
minding me of the progress of the day, I 
hastened down the worn stairs, which indi- 
cated the busy steps of generations long 
returned to their gazeous elements, into 
the church-yard. The all-glorious sun, 
mocking the fate of mortals, still shed a 
fascinating lustre on the southern fields, 
and reminded me, that the village on my 
left was the eastern Sheen, so called 
from the very effect which 1 witnessed. 
Several pretty mansions skirted the fields, 

and the horizon was beautifully filled by 

u 



250 A morning's walk 

the ivell-grown woods of Richmond Park, 
the walls of which were but half a mile 
distant. The path across the meadow 
would have tempted me to enjoy its rare 
beauty ; but my course lay westward, and 
I turned from this brilliant scenery of 
Nature to the homely creations of man 
in the village street. 

Contemptibly as I think of the morals 
of Dee, yet, as an able mathematician 
and an extraordinary character, I could 
not resist my curiosity to view the house 
in which he resided. It is now a Ladies* 
boarding-school; and, on explaining the 
purpose of my visit, I was politely shown 
through the principal rooms. In two 
hundred years, it has of course under- 
gone considerable alterations : yet parts 
of it still exhibit the architecture of the 
sixteenth century. From the front win- 
dows I was shown Dee's garden, on the 
other side of the road, still attached to the 
house; down the central path of which, 
through iron gates, yet standing. Queen 
Elizabeth used to walk from her car- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 291 

riage in the Sheen road, to consult the 
wily conjurer on affairs of love and war. 
I found the gouvernante of this esta- 
blishment perfectly intelhgent on the sub- 
ject of her proper business. Her un- 
^laffected politeness induced me to take a 
chair and recruit my strength with a 
glass of water and a crust of bread. We 
talked on Education, and particularly on 
that of females. She agreed that a fe- 
male pedant is at best k ridiculous cha- 
racter, and that retired graces, personal 
accomplishments, and useful domestic 
acquirements, are best adapted to the 
^destiny of woman. We approved of 
•^ancing, because it affords social recrea- 
:jio^ and wholesome exercise ; and of 
i^usic, for its own sake, and as a means 
jof relieving the monotony of the do- 
mestic circle in long evenings and bad 
weather. She considered the study of 
ea foreign language to be partly neces- 
sary, as a means of acquiring exact ideas 
of the science of language generally ; 
^nd we agreed in preferring the French, 
u 2 



292 A morning's walk 

for its conversational powers and its 
universality ai a living tongue. Nor 
did we differ in our views of the ne- 
cessity of making the future companions 
of well-educated men intimately acquaint- 
ed with the leading facts of geography 
and history, and with the general prin- 
ciples, of natural philosophy and chemis- 
try. I ventured to suggest, that the great 
objection to female boarding-schools, the 
neglect of the arts of housewifery might 
be obviated, by causing two of the pupils, 
of a certain age, to assist in the ma- 
nagement of the store-room and kitchen 
for a week in rotation, during which 
they should fill up the items of the house- 
keeper's account-book, and make pur- 
chases of the family tradesmen. At 
this the good lady smiled — Ah, sir, (said 
she,) yours is a plausible theory, but 
not one mother in ten would tolerate 
a practice which tl^ey would consider as 
a degradation of their daughters.— But, 
(said I,) is not household economy the 
chief pursuit of nine of every ten of the 
sex ; and is not the. system of education 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 293 

incomplete, if not a waste of time, which 
does not embrace that pursuit as part 
of the plan? And just for that reason, 
(said she,) that one in every ten may 
not have occasion to concern herself in 
household affairs, the whole avoid them 
as degrading — each looks for the prize 
in the lottery of fortune, and therefore 
all pitch themselves too high — and it 
would be offensive to the pride and vanity 
of parents, to suppose that their daughter 
might have occasion to know any thing of 
the vulgar employments of the house and 
the kitchen. — It is the parents, then, (said 
I, in conclusion,) who require instruction 
as much as their children. — We agreed, 
however, in our estimate of the superior 
advantages which children of both sexes 
enjoy in the present day, from the iai- 
proved and extended views of the authors 
of school-books. She was warm in her 
praises of the Interrogative System of 
some recent authors ; and I found she 
was no stranger to the merits of the Uni- 
versal Preceptor, and of the elementary 
V 3 



254 A morning's walk 

Grammars of Geography, Histor}', ah^ 
Natural Philosoph3^ 

As 1 continued my course toAvards' 
the site of the ancient residence of the 
Archbishops of Canterbury, which hes at 
the western extremity of the village, f- 
could not avoid asking mysielf, how, iti* 
a country abounding in such means of in- 
struction, political fraud has continued so* 
successful ? Has education yet effected 
nothing for mankind, owing to its servility 
to power ? Is the press but a more effec- 
tive engine for promulgating sbphisti*y, 
owing to its ready corruption ? Is relP 
gion in the pulpit but a plausible means 
of palliating the crimes of statesmen, owing 
to the ambition of its professors? Would 
it now be possible to ^poison Socrates, 
banish Aristides, and crucify Jesus, for 
teaching truth and practising virtue?' Alas! 
a respect for that same truth compelled 
me to say, Yes ! — Yes, said 1, there never 
was a country, nor an age, in which artful 
misrepresentation could be more success^ 
fully practised than at this day in Britain ! 
Can the press effectually sustain truth, 



FROM LONDON" TO KEW. 295 

while ho penal law prevents the purse and 
patronage of ministers and magistrates 
from poisoning its channels of communi- 
cation with the people ? Can the pulpit 
be expected to advocate political truth, 
while the patronage of the Church is in the 
hands of the Administration of the day? 
Cdin education \\.'s>Q\i be free from the in- 
fluence of corrupt patronage, or the force 
of numerous prejudices, while an abject 
conformity to the opinions of each previous 
age is the passport to all scholastic digni- 
ties? Does any established or endowed 
school, and do any number even of private 
schools, make it part of their professed 
course to teach their pupils the value of 
freedom, the duties of freemen, and the 
free principles of the British constitution ? 
Is the system of the public schools, where 
our statesmen and legislators are educated, 
addressed to the heart as well as the 
HEAD ? Is poverty any where more de- 
graded ; cruelty to the helpless animal 
creation any where more remorselessly 
practised ; or the pride of pedantry, and the 
vain-glory of human learning, any where 



296 A morning's walk 

more vaunted ? In short, are the vices of 
gluttony, drunkenness, pugilispj, and pro- 
digality, any where more indulged? Yet, 
may we not sa}^, as in the days of William 
of Wykeham, that " Maimers make the 
manT — and, on the subject of public du- 
ties, might we not derive a lesson even 
from the ancient institutions of Lycurgus? 
The best hopes of society are the pro- 
gressive improvement of succeeding gene- 
rations, and the prospect that each will 
add something to the stock of knowledjie 
to that which went before it. But gloomy 
is the perspective, if the science of educa- 
tion be rendered stationary or retrograde 
by the iron hand of power and bigotry, 
and if errors by these means are propagated 
from age to age with a species of acce- 
lerated force. Yet, what signs t>f improve- 
ment are visible in our public schools, 
wherein are educated those youths who 
are destined to direct the fortunes of Bri- 
tain in each succeeding age ? Most of 
these schools were endowed at the epoch 
of the revival of learning* yet the exact 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 297 

course of instruction which was prescribed 
by the narrow poUcy of that comparatively 
dark age, is slavishly followed even to this 
hour ! Instead of knowledge, moral and 
physical, being taught in them, as the true 
end of all education, — those dead languages, 
which in the 15th and \6th centuries were 
justly considered as the fountains of wis- 
dom, are still exclusively taught ; as though 
the English language, now, as then, con- 
tained no works of taste and information 
on a par with those of the ancients ; and 
as though such writers as Bacon, Shake- 
speare, Milton, Newton, Locke, Addison, 
Pope, Johnson, Blackstone, Hume, Ro- 
bertson, and Blair, had never lived ! Is it 
not to mistake the means for the end, to 
teach any language, except as the medium 
of superior philosophy? And is it .not a 
false inference, to ascribe exclusively to the 
study of languages, those habits of indus- 
trious application, which would grow with 
equal certainty out of the study of the 
useful sciences, if pursued with the same 
system, and for a similar period of time ? 



298 A MORmNG's WALK : 

Reason demands, however, on this sub- 
ject, those concessions from the pride of 
PEDANTRY which that pride will never 
yield. We seem, therefore, to be des- 
tined, by the force of circumstances, to 
make slow or inconsiderable advances in 
civilization; and it remains for other na- 
tions, the bases of whose institutions are 
less entangled in prejudices, to raise the 
condition of man higher in the scale of 
improvement than can be expected in 
Britain. We may, as a result of geogra-^c^i 
phical position, attain a certain degree of 
national distinction ; but, if our system of 
public education cannot be made to keep 
pace with knowledge, and is not calculated 
to generate a succession of patriots, who 
^re qualified to Sustain liberty at home and 
justice abroad, we cannot fail to sink in 
our turn to the level of modern Egypt, 
Greece, and Italy, Those hotbeds of 
human genius were ultimately degraded 
by the triumph of prejudices ovei' princi- 
ples, by the extinction of public sf>irit, by 
the preference of despotism over liberty, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. W9. 

and by the glare of foreign conquests. 
The countries, the soil, and even the cities 
remain ; but, as their youth are no longer 
trained in the love of truth and liberty, 
they exist but as beacons to warn other 
people of their fall and its causes. 

I turned aside to view a manufactory of 
Delft and Stone ware, for which, among 
potters, Mortlake is famous. A silly air 
of mystery veiled these work-shops from 
public view ; and, as I professed mine to 
be a visit of mere curiosity, the conduc- 
tor's taciturnity increased with the variety 
of my unsatisfied questions. It was in 
vain I assured him that I was no potter- 
that experimental philosophy and chemis-' 
try had stript empiricism of its garb — and 
thkt ho secret, worth preserving, could 
long be kept in a manufactory which em- 
ployed a dozen workmen, at 20^. a week. 
The principal articles made here are* 
those brown stone jugs, of which the song 
tells us, one was made of the clay of Toby 
Filpot; and I could not help remarking, that 
the groups on these jugs are precisely those 



300 A MOR]^ING*S WALK 

on the common pottery of the Romans. 
I learnt, however, that the patterns em- 
ployed here are not copied from the antique, 
but from those used at Delft, of which 
this manufactory is a successful imitation 
in every particular : and perhaps the 
Delft manufactory itself is b'ut a continua- 
tion of a regular series of stone or earthen- 
ware manufactories, from the age of 
the Romans. Each may have continued 
to imitate the approved ornaments of its 
predecessors, till we trace in the produc- 
tions of this contemporary pottery, the 
patterns used by the nations of anti- 
quity when just emerging from barbarism. 
Hunting, the most necessary of arts to the 
vagrant and carnivorous savage, is the em- 
ployment celebrated on all these vessels. 
A stag, followed by ferocious quadrupeds 
and hungry bipeds, forms their general 
ornament. I have picked up the same 
groups among Roman ruins, have often 
contemplated them in the cabinets of the 
curious, and here I was amused at view^ 
ing them in creations but a week old. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 301 

To take off ornamental impressions on 
plastic clay, was a contrivance vvhich 
would present itself to the first potters — 
but perhaps it was the foundation of all 
our proud arts of sculpture, painting, 
hieroglyphic design, writing, seal-engrav- 
ing, and, finally, of printing and copper- 
plate engraving ! What an interesting 
series! — But I solemnly put the question, 
Have we arrived at the last of its terms ? 
Is the series capable of no further applica- 
tion, extension, or variation? Have we 
conceived the utmost limits of its abstrac- 
tions? Have we examined the powers of 
all its terms with equal care ? In one sense, 
we may never get beyond a Phidias or a 
Canova — in another, beyond a Woollet 
or a Bartolozzi — or, in a third, beyond a 
Corregio or a David ; — but have we suffi- 
ciently examined and husbanded the ab- 
stractions of Thoth or Cadmus? — Outrht 
not the signs of ideas, ere this, to have 
become abstract representations, as univer- 
sal in their signification as ideas them- 
selves? — Ought we to be obliged to study 



S02 A morning's walk 

all languages and many characters, in 
order to comprehend the ideas which are 
common to the whole human race? Are 
ideas moi*e numerous than musical sounds, 
and tones, and tunes? .Do not the powers 
of musical characters and of the telegraph 
prove the facility and capacity of very sim- 
ple combinations? Does not the Christ- 
mas game of Twenty indicate the narrow 
f ange of all our ideas ? And is not a fact 
thereby ascertained, from which we may 
conceive the practicability of so combining 
hieroglyphic with arbitrary characters, as 
to be able to read men's ideas without the 
intervention of a hundred tongues? 
J On leaving this manufactory, I pro- 
ceeded about a hundred yards, through 
the main street ; and, turning a corner on 
the right, beheld the ancient gateway, now 
bricked up, and the ruined walls of an 
enclosure, sanctified, during five centuries, 
as the residence of thirty-four successors 
to the see of Canterbury. Learning that 
the enclosure was occupied by a market- 
gardener, I could not avoid observing, 
1 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 303 

as a proof of the sagacity of gardeners, 
and of the luxury which manured these 
sites, that I have seldom visited decayed 
religious houses without finding them in 
possession of market - gardeners ! Ah ! 
thought I, as I stopped before the gate, how 
many thousands of rich donations used 
to be brought to that portico by super- 
stitious votaries, who considered it as the 
emblem of the gate of St. Peter, and be- 
lieved that, if welcomed at the one, they 
should be equally welcomed at the other ! 
Poor souls— they and their spiritual pro- 
tectors have alike passed away — and we 
can now look with the eye of Philosophy 
bh the impotent impostures of one party, 
and on the unsuspecting credulity of the 
other ! 

I was in haste — yet I could not avoid 
stopping five minutes — yes, reader, and it 
is a lesson to human pomp^ — I could wait 
but five minutes to contemplate the gate 
through which had passed thirty-four suc- 
cessive Archbishops of Canterbury, from 
Anselm; in the time of William the Nor- 



304 A morning's walk 

man, to Warham and Cranmer, the pliant 
tools of the tyrant Tudor. As leaders of 
the Catholic Church, we may now, in this 
Protestant country, speak, without of- 
fence, of their errors and vices. Ambi- 
tion and the exercise of power were doubt- 
less the ruling passions of the majority, 
who have shovt^n themselves little scrupu- 
lous as to the means by which those pas- 
sions might be gratified ; — yet it would be 
uncandid not to admit that many men, like 
the present amiable Protestant archbishop, 
have filled this See, whose eminent virtue, 
liberality, and piety, were their principal 
recommendations — and who doubtless be- 
lieved all those articles of the Church's 
faith which they taught to others. They 
were, in truth, wheels of a machine which 
existed before their time ; and they honest- 
ly performed the part assigned them, with- 
out disputing its origin or the sources of 
its powers ; prudently considering that, if 
they endeavoured to pull it in pieces, they 
were hkely themselves to become the first 
victims of their temerity. Thus doubtless it 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 305 

was with Cicero and the philosophers of 
antiquity; they found theological machinery 
powerful enough to govern society; and 
though, on the subject of the Gods, they 
prudently conformed, or were silent, yet 
we are not at this day warranted in sup- 
posing that they obsequiously reverenced 
the absurd theology of the romance of 
Homer. Of the archbishops who have 
passed this gate, St. Thomas a Becket 
was perhaps the greatest bigot ; but the 
exaltation of the ecclesiastical over the 
temporal power was the fashion of his 
day ; and obedience and allegiance could 
scarcely be expected of a clergy who, 
owing all their dignities to the Pope, owned 
no authority superior to that of the 
keeper of Peter's Keys to the Gates of 
Heaven ! 

I could not,, even in thus transiently 
glancing at these meagre remains, avoid 
the interesting recollection, that this por- 
tico once served as a sanctuary for the con- 
trition of guilt against the unsparing ma- 
lignity of law. In those days, when bi-^ 



306 A mobning's walk 

gotry courted martyrdom as a passport to 
eternal glory, and when, in consequence, 
the best principle of religion was enabled 
to triumph over the malice of weak princes 
and the tyranny of despots, this gate (said 
I) served as one of many avenues to the 
emblem of that Divinity to whom the in- 
terior was devoted. It justly asserted the 
authority of the religion of charity, whose 
Founder ordered his disciples to pardon 
offences, though multiplied seventy times 
seven times. Yet, alas ! in our days, how 
much is this divine precept forgotten ! Is 
not the sanguinary power of law suffered 
to devour its victims iovjirst relapses from 
virtue, as unsparingly as for any number 
of repetitions ? Do not its sordid agents 
exult in the youth or inexperience of of- 
fenders, and often receive contrition and 
confession as aggravating proofs of more 
deliberate turpitude ? Has not the modern 
sanctuary of Mercy long been shut, by 
forms of state, against the personal sup- 
plications of repentance, and against hum- 
ble representations of venial errors of cri- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 307 

liilnal courts? If sinners would approach 
that gate, are they not stopped at the very 
threshold, and obliged to rely on the in- 
tercession of some practised minister, or 
seek the good offices of illiberal clerks ? Is 
this Christendom, the volume of whose 
faith tells its votaries to knock without 
fear at the gate of Mercy, and it shall be 
opened by an Heavenly Father ? — or Eng- 
land, where a solemn law enacts, that it 
is the right of the subject to petition the 
King, and that all commitments and pro- 
secutions for such petitioning are illegal ? — 
or civilized Europe, where it has so often 
been asserted that the receiving of peti- 
tions, and granting their prayer, is the 
most enviable branch of royal preroga- 
tive? Alas ! will the golden mean of rea- 
son never govern the practices of men ? 
Must we for ever be the dupes of super- 
stition, or the slaves of upstart authority ? 
Are we doomed never to enjoy, in the 
ascendancy of our benevolent sympathies, 
a medium between the bigotry of the 
Crozier, the pride of the Sceptre, and 
the cruelty of the Sword ? 



30$ A morning's walk 

Nor ought it to be forgotten, that the 
benevolence which flowed from this por- 
tico, served as a substitute for the poor's- 
rates, throughout the adjoining district. 
Thus Food, as well as Mercy, appear- 
ed to flow from Heaven, through the 
agency of the Romish priesthood ! Thus 
they softened the effects of the monopolies 
of w^ealth, and assuaged the severities of 
power 1 And thus, duration was conferred 
on a system which violated common sense 
in its tenets ; but, in its practices, exhibit- 
ed every claim on the atlections and gra- 
titude of the people ! At this gate, and 
at a thousand others spread over the land, 
no poor man sougnt to satisfy his hunger 
in vain. He was not received by any grim- 
visaged overseer; not called on for equivo- 
cal proofs of legal claims ; not required to 
sell his liberty in the workhouse as the 
price of a single med ; not terrified by 
the capricious justice of a vulgar consta- 
ble ; nor in fear of the infernal machine, 
called a pass- cart — but it was sufficient 
that he was an hungered, and they gave 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 309 

,hiai to eat — or that he was sick, and they 
gave him medicine ! Such was the system 
of those times; not more perfect for being 
ancient, but worthy of being remember- 
ed, because justified by long experience. 
Thrice the relative wealth, and as much 
active benevolence, are at this day exerted 
to relieve the still unsatisfied wants of the 
poor, simply because our workhouses are 
not regularly provided with an hospitable 
monastic portico, where temporary wants 
might be supplied with a wholesome meal, 
without the formality of regular admission, 
without proofs of settlement, without the 
terrors of the House of Correction, or ths 
horrors of a middle-passage in the pass- 
cart ! The tenderest sympathy would then 
be able to excuse itself from the obligation 
of granting eleemosynary aid — the act of 
begging might be justly punished as a 
crime — and crimes themselves could never 
be palliated by pleas of urgent want. 

This entire site was too much consecrated 
by historical associations to be passed 
without further examination. A slight 
X 3 



310 A morning's walk 

expression of my feelings procured every 
attention from Penley, the gardener, who 
told me that his family had occupied it 
since the revolution, and that he remem- 
bered every part above fifty years. He 
took me to a summer-house, on the wall 
next the water, the ruins of which were of 
the architecture of the time of the Plan- 
tagenets; and, indeed, the entire wall, 
above half a mile in circuit, w^as of that 
age. Of the ancient palace no vestige re- 
mained; and he could guess its precise 
site only by means of the masses of brick- 
work which he discovered by digging in 
certain parts of the garden. 

If I vvas, however, litde gratified by 
remains of the labours of man, I was filled 
with astonishment at certain specimens of 
vegetation, unquestionably as ancient as 
the last Catholic archbishops. Among 
these were two enormous walnut-trees, 
twelve feet round the trunk, the boughs of 
which were themselves considerable trees, 
spreading above tvventy-six yards across. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 311 

Each tree covered above a rood of ground ; 
and so massy were the lower branches, 
that it has been found necessary to support 
them with props. Their height is equal 
to their breadth, or about seventy feet; 
and I was surprised to find, that, notwith- 
standing their undoubted age, they still 
bear abundance of fine fruit. Mr. Penley 
assured me, that in his time he had seen 
no variation in them; they had doubtless 
attained their full growth in his J^oyhood, 
but since then they had maintained a 
steady maturity. At present they must be 
considered as in a state of slow decay; 
but I have no doubt that in the year I916 
they will continue grand and prod uctiv© 
trees. 

I was equally struck with some box- 
trees, probably of far greater antiquity. 
They were originally planted in a semicir- 
cle to serve as an arbour ; but in the pro- 
gress of centuries they have grown to the 
prodigious height of thirty feet, and their 
trunks are from six to nine inches in dia- 
X 4 



312 A MORNING S WALK 

meter. * And what was strikingly curious, 
in the area which they enclose is seen the 
oval table of the arbour, evidently of the 
same age. It is of the species of stone 
called Plymouth marble, — massy, and so 
well-wrought as to prove that it was not 
placed there at the cost of private reve- 
nues. It was interesting, and even affect- 
ing, to behold these signs of comfort and 
good cheer still remaining, so many ages 
after those who enjoyed them have passed 
away like exhalations or transient meteors ! 
I w^ould have sat down, and, with a better 
conscience than Don Juan, have invoked 

* The box-wood used in England by the engravers 
on wood is often twelve inches in diameter ; this, how- 
ever, is not of English growth, but comes from Turkey, 
where it is held in slight estimation. Of course, when 
engravings on wood are larger than twelve inches in 
diameter, two blocks are joined together, for it is onljr 
the transverse section that can be wrought for this 
purpose. The most famous plantations of box ia 
England are on the White-hill^ near Dorking; but 
the trees there are mere sticks and shrubs compared 
with those at Mortlake; yet many of them are known 
to be two hundred years old» 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 31^ 

their ghosts over a bottle of the honest 
gardener's currant-wine ; but he had filled 
up the elliptical area of the trees with a 
pile of fagots, of which the old table serves* 
as a dry basement. 

What was less wonderful, though to the 
full as interesting — was the circumstance 
that the gardener has, at different times, ia 
digging up the roots of his old fruit-trees^ 
found them imbedded in skeletons of per^ 
sons who w^ere interred in or near the 
chapel of the archbishops. He told me, 
that a short time before my visit, in remove 
ing a pear-tree, he had taken up three 
perfect skeletons ; and that one of them 
was pronounced by a surgeon in the neigh- 
bourhood to be the frame- work of a man 
full seven feet high. This probably was 
an accidental circumstance ; for it is not to. 
be supposed that any of the interments on 
this spot took place in those rude ages 
when bulk and stature led to rank and 
distinction, and, by consequence, to cost- 
ly funerals and encasements of stone, 
which often surprize us with specimens of 



314 A morning's walk 

an apparently gigantic race. Doubtless, 
however, here were interred hundreds of 
pious persons, who calculated, in their 
last moments, on the protection of this 
consecrated ground till '^ the Earth should 
be called to give up its Dead ;" and now, 
owing to the unsatisfied passion which the 
first '' Defender of the Faith" felt for Anna 
Boleyn, this consecrated spot, and a thou- 
sand similar ones, have been converted 
into cabbage-gardens ! 

Perhaps more than one archbishop, 
many bishops, and scores of deans, ange- 
lic doctors, and other reverend person- 
ages, lie in this now profaned and disho- 
noured spot 1 So great an outrage might, 
one would have supposed, have led them, 
according to ordinary notions, again to 
walk the earth, to despoil the garden, and 
disturb the gardener's rest 1 I expressed 
my fears on this point to the worthy man ; 
but he assured me, these good gentlefolks 
lie very quiet; and that, if they produced 
any visible effect, it was as manure, in 
rendering the part where they lie a little 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 315 

more productive than the other parts. I 
shuddered at this lesson of humiUty — Alas ! 
thought 1, is it for such ends that we pam- 
per ourselves — that some of us boast of 
being better than others — that we seek 
splendid houses and superfine clothing— 
and render our little lives wretched by 
hunting after rank, and titles, and riches I 
After all, we receive a sumptuous funeral, 
and are affectionately laid in what is called 
consecrated ground, which some pohtical 
revolution, or change of religion, con- 
verting into a market-garden, our bodies 
then serve but as substitutes for vulgar 
manure ! If such an end of the illustrious 
and proud men, whose remains now fer- 
tilize this garden, had been contemplated 
by them, how truly would they have be- 
come disciples of the humble Jesus— and 
how horror-struck would they have been 
at the fantastic airs which, in their lives, 
they were giving themselves 1 — Yet, is there 
a reader of these pages, the end of whose 
mortal career may not be similar to theirs ? 
T-rand ought he not to apply to him- 



ol6 A morning's walk 

self the lesson thus taught by the known 
fate of the former inhabitants of the archi- 
episcopal palace of Mortlake? 

I shook my head at Penley, and told 
him, that he was a terrible '' leveller," and 
that, in making manure of archbishops 
and bishops, he was one of the most effec- 
tive moralists T had ever conversed with ! 

In walking round this garden, every 
part proved that its soil had been enriched 
from all the neighbouring lands. Whether, 
according to Dr. Creighton, there are 
classes of organic particles adapted to form 
vegetables and animals over and over 
again; or whether, according to the mo- 
dern chemistry, all organized bodies consist 
of carbonaceous, metallic, and gaseous 
substances in varied combinations; it is 
certain, that the well-fed priesthood, who 
formerly dwelt within these walls, drew 
together for ages such a supply of the 
pabulum of vegetation, as will require 
ages to exhaust. All the trees of this 
garden are of the most luxuriant size : 
gooseberries and currants in other gardens 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 317 

grow as shrubs ; but here they form trees 
of four or five feet in height, and a cir- 
cumference of five or six yards. In 
short, a luxuriance approaching to rank- 
ness, and a soil remarkable for its depth 
of colour and fatness, characterize every 
part. The abundant produce, as is usual 
through all this neighbourhood, is conveyed 
to Covent- Garden market in the night, 
and there disposed of by salesmen that 
attend on behalf of the gardeners. 

I took my departure from this inclosure 
with emotions that can only be felt. I 
looked again and again across the space 
which, during successive ages, had given 
birth to so many feelings, and nurtured so 
many anxious passions; but which now, 
for many ages, has, among bustling gene- 
rations, lost all claim to sympathy or no- 
tice; and displays, at this day, nothing but 
the still mechanism of vegetable life. There 
might be little in the past to rouse the af- 
fections; but, in the difference of manners, 
there was much to amuse the imagination. 
It had been the focus, if not of real 



318 A MORNING S WALK 

piety, at least of ostensible religion ; and,, 
dead as the spot now appeared, its 
mouldering walis^ some of those gigantic 
trees, and, above all, the box- tree arbour, 
had, in remote ages, echoed from hour to 
hour the melodious chaunts and imposing 
ceremonials of the Romish Church. Here 
moral habits sanctified the routine of life, 
and conferred happiness as a necessary 
result of restraint and decorum — and here 
Vice never disgraced Reason by public ex- 
hibitions; but, if lurking in any breast, 
confessed its own deformity by its disguises 
and its secresy. In surveying such a spot, 
the hand of Time softens down even the 
asperities of superstition, and the shade 
of this gloomy site, contrasted with the 
bright da37s of its prosperity, inclined me 
to forget the intolerant policy which was 
wont to emanate from its spiritual coun- 
cils. Under those fruit-trees, I exclaimed, 
lie all that remains of the follies, hopes, 
and superstitions of the former occupants; 
for, of them, I cannot remark as of the 
torpid remains in Mordake church-yard, 



i 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 31^ 

that they hve in the present generation. — 
No I these dupes of clerical fraud devoted 
themselves to celibacy as a service to the 
procreative Cause of causes, and be- 
came withered limbs of their family trees. 
We can, however, now look on their re- 
mains, and presume to scan their errors: — 
but let us recollect, that, though we are 
gazers to-day, we shall be gazed upon to- 
morrow — and that, though we think our* 
selves wise, we are, perhaps, fated to be 
commiserated in our turn by the age which 
follows. Alas ! said I, when will the ge- 
neration arrive that will not merit as much 
pity from succeeding generations as those 
poor monks ? Yet how wise, how infalli- 
ble, and how intolerant, is every sect of 
religion — every school of philosophy- -every 
party of temporary politicians — and every 
nation in regard to every other nation! 
Do not these objects, and all exertions of 
reasoning, prove, that the climax of human 
wisdom is humility? 

Commending the bones of the monks to 
the respect of the gardener, whose feelings, 
S 



320 A morning's walk 

to do him justice, were in unison with my 
own, I proceeded, by the side of the wall, 
towards the banks of the Thames. 

The relics of exploded priestcraft which 
I had just contemplated in the adjoining 
garden, led me into an amusing train of 
thought on the origin and progress of 
superstition, I felt that the various mytho- 
logies which the world has witnessed, grow 
out of mistakes in regard to the phenomena 
of SECONDARY CAUSES; all natural phe- 
nomena, accordingly as they were jit or 
unjit to the welfare or caprices of men, 
being ascribed, by the barbarous tribes 
who subsequently became illustrious na- 
tions, to the agency of gootf and e^?27 spirits. 
However absurd might be the follies 
of these superstitions, they becauie in*- 
grafted on Society, and were implanted in 
the opening minds of every successive gene- 
ration. Of course, the age never arrived 
which did not inherit the greater part of 
the prejudices of the preceding age. Rea- 
son and philosophy might in due time 
illumine a few individuals ; yet even these. 



tROM LONDON TO KEW. 321 

influenced by early prejudices, and a pru* 
dent regard for their fortunes and personal 
safety, would rather support, or give ^ 
beneficial direction to, mythological super* 
stitions, than venture to expose and oppose 
them. Hence it was that the Egyptians, 
Greeks, and Romans, continued polytheist^ 
through the most brilliant epochs of their 
history; and hence their philosophers, as 
Pythagoras, Plato, and others, gave 
to the whole the plausibility of system, by 
effecting to demonstrate that the first 
Cause necessarily and proximately giene- 
rates immortal gods ! Hence too it is that 
philosophers have, in different past ages, 
■undertaken to demonstrate the verity of all 
religions, and according to the religion of the 
government under which they lived, they 
have either supported Polytheism, Theism, 
Sabinism, Judaism, Popery, or Mahomedan- 
ism. The fate of Socrates has never been 
forgotten by any philosopher who pos- 
sessed the chief attribute of wisdom — « 
prudence; and no benevolent man will 
©ver seek to disturb a public faith which 



322 A MORNING'S WALK 

promotes public virtue, because the me- 
morials of history prove that no discords 
have been so bloody as those which ha^^e 
been generated by attempts to change reli- 
gious faith. This class of human errors can 
indeed be corrected only by establishing 
in civilized countries practical and unequi- 
vocal systems of toleration; because, in 
that case, truth and reason are sure, in 
due time, to establish themselves, while 
falsehood and fraud must sink into merited 
contempt. 

- The fleeting, wild, and crude notions of 
savages, constituted therefore the first 
stage in the progress of mythological super- 
stition. Their invisible agencies would 
however soon have forms conferred upon 
them by weak or fertile imaginations, and 
be personified as men or animals, according 
to the nature of their deeds. To pray to 
them for benefits, and to deprecate their 
wrath, would constitute the second stage. 
In the mean time, individuals who might, by 
ehance or design, become connected with 
some of these supernatural agencies, would 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 323 

be led, by vivid or gloomy imaginations, 
to deceive even themselves by notions of 
election or inspiration; and, then super* 
adding ceremonials to worship, they would 
form a select class, living, without manual 
labour, on the tributes offered by the peo- 
ple to satisfy or appease the unseen agen- 
cies. This would constitute a third stage. 
Each priest would then endeavour to extol 
the importance of the god, of whom he 
believed himself to be the minister; and 
he would give to his deity a visible form, 
cause a temple to be built for him, deliver 
from it his oracles or prophecies, and affect 
to work miracles in his name. This would 
constitute the fourth stage. The terror 
of unseen powers would now be found to 
be a convenient engine of usurped human 
authority, and hence an association would 
be formed between the temporal and invi- 
sible powers, the latter being exalted bv 
the former in having its temples enlarged 
and its priests better provided for. This 
would constitute the Jifth stage; or the 
consummation of the system as it has 
Y 2 



524 

been witnessed in India, Persia, Egypt^ 
Greece, and Italy. — Hence among the 
Hindoos, those personified agencies have 
been systematized under the titles of Brah- 
ma, Vishnu, Siva, Crishna, &c. Among 
the Egyptians, they were worshipped 
in the forms of living animals, and called 
Osiris, Amnion^ Oris, Typhon, Isis, &c. 
Among the Chaldeans, and, after them^ 
among the Jews, they were classed in 
principalities, powers, and dominions of 
angels and devils, under chiefs, who bore 
the names of Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, 
Moloch, Legion, Satan, Beelzebub, &c. 
Among the Greeks, the accommodating 
Plato flattered the priests and the vulgar, by 
pretending to demonstrate that their per- 
sonifications were necessary emanations 
from THE ONE ; and he, and others, 
arranged the worship of them under the 
names of Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, Ve- 
nus, Pluto, Mars, &c. Among the nor- 
thern NATIONS, they assumed the 
names of Woden, Sleepner, Hela, Fola, 
&c. Every town and village had^^ more- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 325 

^ver, its protecting divinity, or guardian 
saint, under some fantastical name, or the 
name of some fantastical fanatic ; and, 
even every man, every house, every plant, 
every brook, every day, and every hour, 
according to most of those systems, had 
their accompanying genius ! In a word, 
the remains of these superstitions are still 
so mixed with our habits and language, 
that, although we pity the hundreds of 
wretched victims of legal wisdoniy who 
under Elizabeth and the Stuarts were 
burnt to death for witchcraft; and abhor 
the ghosts of Shakespeare, his fairies, and 
his enchantments; yet we still countenance 
the system in most of the personifications 
of language, and practise it when we 
speak even of the spirit of Philosophy 
and the genius of Truth, 

Nor have philosophers themselves, either 
in their independent systems, or in the 
systems of the schools, steered clear of the 
vulgar errors of mythologists. They have 
in every age introduced into nature active 
causes without contact, continuity, or proxi- 

Y 3 



S26 A morning's walk 

mity; and, even in our days, continue to 
extort worship towards the unseen and 
occult powers of attraction or sympathy, 
and of repulsion or antipathy ! It is true, 
they say that such words only express re- 
sults or phenomena, and others equivocate 
by saying there is in no case any contact : — 
but I reply, that to give names to proxi- 
mate causes does not correspond with 
my notions of the proper business of phi- 
losophy; and that, in thousands of in- 
stances, there is sensible contact, and in 
all nature some contact of intermediate 
media, in the affections of which, may 
be traced the laws governing the pheno- 
mena of distant bodies. At the hour in 
which I write, the recognized philosophical 
divinities are called Space, Matter, 
Inertia, Caloric, Expansion, Mo- 
tion, Impulse, Clustering Power, 
Elasticity, Atomic FoRxMS^ Ato- 
mic Proportions, Oxygen, Hydro- 
gen, Nitrogen, Chlorine, Iodine, 
Electricity, Light, Excitabili- 
ty, Irritability, &c. All these have 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 327 

their priests, worshippers, propagandists, 
and votaries, among some of whom may 
be found as intolerant a spirit of bigotry 
as ever disgraced any falling church. As 
governments do not, however, ally them- 
selves to Philosophy, there is happily no 
danger that an heretical or reforming 
Philosopher will, as such, ever incur the 
hazard of martyrdom ; and, as reason de- 
cides all disputes in the court of Philoso- 
phy, there can be no doubt, but, in this 
court at least, Truth will finally prevail. 

Hail, Genius of Philosophy 1 Hail, thou 
poetical personification of wisdom ! Hailj 
thou logical abstraction of all experimental 
knowledge ! I hail thee, as thou art re- 
presented in the geniuses of Pythagoras, 
Thales, Aristotle, Archimedes, Ptolemy, 
Columbus, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, 
Newton, Boyle, Euler, Buffon, Franklin, 
Beccaria, Priestley, Lavoisier, Cavendish, 
Condorcet, Laplace, Herschel, Berzelius, 
Jenner, Dalton, Cuvier, and Davy; and 
I hail thee, as thou excitest the ambition 
y 4 



S28 A morning's WALfe 

of the solitary student of an obscure vil* 
lage, to raise himself among those gods of 
the human race ! How many privations 
must thy votaries suffer in a sordid world; 
and how many human passions must they 
subdue, before they can penetrate thy 
mazy walks, or approach the hidden sanc- 
tuaries of thy temple of Truth ! Litde 
thinks the babbhng politician, the pedantic 
linguist, or the equivocating metaphysician, 
of the watchful hours which thy wor- 
shippers must pass, — of the never-ending 
patience which they must exert, -^of the 
concurring circumstances which must favour 
their enthusiasm ! Whether we consider 
the necessary magnitude of the library, 
the ascending intricacy of the books, the 
multitude of the instruments, or the variety 
of the experimental apparatus in the use 
of which the searchers into thy mysteries 
must be familiar ; we are compelled to re- 
verence the courage of him who seeks pre- 
eminence through thee, and to yield to 
those mortals who have attained thy fa^ 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 32*> 

▼ours, our wonder, admiration, and gra- 
titude!* 

«. jj 

* The system of Physics which 1 have for many 
years inculcated, in tiie hope of removing from Phi- 
losophy the equivocal word attraction, supposes 
that space is filled with an elastic medium, — that 
this medium permeates bodies in proportion to their 
quantities of matter, — that resistance or re-action 
takes place between the universal medium of space 
and the novel arrangements of matter in bodies,-^ — 
that this action and re-action diverge in the medium 
of space from the surfaces of bodies, — and that, 
like all diverging forces, they act inversely as the 
squares of the distances. That, if there were but one 
body in the universe, it would remain stationary by 
the uniform action of the surrounding medium, — 
that the creation of another body would produce 
phenomena between them, owing to each intercept- 
ing the action of the medium of space on the other, 
in proportion to the angles mutually presented by 
their bulks, — ^that two such bodies so acted upon by 
an universal medium must necessarily fall together> 
owing to the difference between the finite pressure 
on their near sides, and the infinite pressure on their 
outsides,^ — that a stone falls to the earth, because, 
with regard to it, the earth intercepts an angle of 
1 80° of the medium of space on its near or under 
side ; while, with regard to the earth, the stone in- 
tercepts but a small proportion of a second, — tha^ 



330 A morning's walk 

Overtaking three or four indigent chil- 
dren, whose darned stockings and carefully- 
patched clothes bespoke some strong mo- 

these actual centripetal forces are very slighi, be- 
tween such distant bodies as the planets, — and, that 
the law of the forces is necessarily as their bulks 
directly, and as the squares of their distances in- 
versely. That the centrifugal forces result from the 
same pressure or impulse, — that the varied densities 
of the opposite sides of the masses, as land and 
water, occasion a uniform external pressure to pro- 
duce rotation on an axis, — that the action or oscil- 
lation of the fluid surfaces, a consequence of the 
rotation, constantly changes the mechanical centre 
of the mass, so as thereby to drive forward the ma- 
thematical centre in an orbit, — and that this is the 
purpose and effect of the tides, increased by the 
action and reaction of the fluid and solid parts. 
That centripetal and centrifugal forces so created, 
are necessarily varied by the diverse arrangements of 
the solid and fiuid parts of planetary bodies, as we 
see in the northern and southern hemispheres of the 
earth, — and that hence arise the varied motions, the 
elliptical orbits, and all the peculiar phenoniena. 
Attached as the moderns are to the terms attraction 
and repulsion^ I produce this theory with due de- 
ference to their prejudices ; and I venture to pre- 
sume, that, on examination, it will be found to be 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 331 

tive for attention in their parents, I was 
induced to ask them some questions. They 
said they had been to Mordake School; 
and I collected from them, that they were 
part of two or three hundred who attend 

a fair induction from the phenomena, and also in 
perfect accordance with all the laws of motion. It 
accounts for the uniform direction and moderate 
exertion of the centripetal force towards the largest 
body of a system ; for the mutual actions of a system 
of bodies, or of many systems, on each other; and 
for the constantly varying direction of the centrifugal 
force, by shewing that it is generated within the 
mass. The term repulsion is even more disgraceful 
to Philosophy than that of attraction; all repulsion 
being in truth but a relative phenomenon between at 
least three bodies ; and its most palpable appearance 
in electricity being but a stronger mechanical action 
towards opposite surfaces. The local impulses of 
magnets, and of bodies going into chemical union, 
are not better explained by Kepler's gravitating 
sympathy, than by this doctrine of mechanical inter- 
ception ; but, I have no doubt that the former of 
these will, in due time, be traced to the difference 
between the rotary motion of the Equatorial and 
Polar regions; and the latter to some laws of the 
atomic theory, arising out of the shape and arrange- 
ment of the component particles, with reference to 
those of surrounding bodies. 



332 A morning's walk 

one of Dr. Bell's schools, which had lately 
been established for the instruction of poor 
children in this vicinity. I found that, 
until this establishment had been formed, 
these children attended no school regularly 
— and, in reply to a question, one of them 
said, '*Our father could not afford to pay 

/Mr. sixpence a week for us, so we 

could not go at all ; but novv we go to this 
school, and it costs father nothing." This 
was as it should be ; the social state ought 
to supply a preparatory education of its 
members — or, how can a government ex- 
pect to find moral agents in an ignorant 
population — how can it presume to inflict 
punishments on those who have not been 
enabled to read the laws which they are 
bound to respect — and how can the 
professors of religion consider themselves 
as performing their duty, if they have 
not enabled all children to peruse the 
volume of Christian Revelation? We are 
assured by Mr. Lancaster, that George 
THE Third expressed the benevolent 
wish that every one of his subjects should 
be enabled to read the Bible; and his sue- 



FROM LONDON TO EEW. 33S 

eessors will, it is to be hoped, not lose 
sight of so admirable a principle. But a 
few ages ago, to be able to read conferred 
the privileges of the clerical character, and 
exempted men from capital punishmentif 
— how improved, therefore, is the present 
state of society, and how different may it 
yet become, as prejudices are dispelled,v 
and as liberal feelings acquire their jusS 
ascendancy among the rulers of nations! 
These boys spoke of their school with evi* 
dent satisfaction ; and one of them, who 
proved to be -a monitor, seemed not a little 
proud of the distinction. Whether the 
system of Mr. Lancaster or of Dr. Bell 
enjoy the local ascendancy; or whether 
these public seminaries be *' schools for 
all," or schools in which the dogmas of 
some particular faith are taught, I am 
indifferent, provided there are some such 
schools, and that all children are enabled 
to read the Bible, and '* the Catechism of 
their Social Rights and Duties,*' 

Seeing several respectable houses facing 
the meadow which led to the Thames, I 
inquired of a passing female the names of 



354" A morning's walk 

their owners, and learnt that they were 
chiefly occupied by widow ladies, to whom 
she gave the emphatic title of Madam-^ 
though she called one of them Mistress, 
It appeared that those who were denomi- 
nated Madams were widows of gentlemen 
who, in their lives, bore the title of 
Esquires ; but that the Mistress was an 
old maid, whom her neighbours were 
ashamed longer to call by the juvenile 
appellation of Aliss, Madam — — , whose 
name I ought not to have forgotten, has 
devoted a paddock of four or five acres to 
the comfortable provision of two super- 
annuated coach-horses. One of them, I 
was assured, was thirty-five years old, and 
the other nearly thirty; and their venerable 
appearance and pleasant pasture excited a 
strong interest in favour of their kind- 
hearted mistress. Such is the influence 
of good example, that I found her paddock 
was opposite the residence of the equally 
amiable Valentine Morris, who so 
liberally provided for all his live-stock 
about thirty years ago, and whose oldest 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 33S 

horse died lately, after enjoying his master's 
legacy above twenty-four 3-ears. 

I now descended towards a rude space 
near the Thames, which appeared to be in 
the state in which the occasional overflow* 
ings and gradual retrocession of the rive? 
had left it. It was one of those wastes 
which the lord of the manor had not yet 
enabled some industrious cultivator to dis* 
guise; and in large tracts of which Great 
Britain still exhibits the surface of the 
earth in the pristine state in which it was 
left by the secondary causes that have 
given it form. The Thames, doubtless, in a 
remote age, covered the entire site; but 
it is the tendency of rivers to narrow 
themselves, by promoting prohfic vegetable 
creations on their consequently increasing 
and encroaching banks, though the vari- 
ous degrees of fall produce every variety 
of currents, and consequently every variety 
of banks, in their devious course. In due 
time, the course of the river becomes 
choaked where a flat succeeds a rapid, and 
the detained waters then form lakes in the 
interior. These lakes likewise generate 



6B6 a morning's walk 

enGroaching banks, which finally fill up 
their basins, when new rivers are formed 
on higher levels. These, in their turn, 
become interrupted, and repetitions of the 
former circle of causes produce one class 
of those elevations of land above the level 
of the sea, which have so much puzzled 
geologists. The only condition which a 
surface of dry land requires to increase 
and raise itself, is the absence of salt wa- 
ter, consequent on which is an accumula- 
tion of vegetable and animal remains. 
The Thames has not latterly been allowed 
to produce its natural effects, because for 
two thousand years the banks have been 
inhabited by man, who, unable to appre- 
ciate the general laws by which the phe- 
nomena of the earth are produced, has 
sedulously kept open the course of the 
river, and prevented the formation of 
interior lakes. The Caspian Sea, and all 
similar inland seas and lakes, were, for the 
most part, formed from the choaking up 
of rivers, which once constituted their out- 
lets. If the course of nature be not inter- 
rupted by the misdirected industry of man^ 



FHOM LONDON TO KEW. 337 

the gradual desiccation of all such collec- 
tions of water will, in due time, produce 
land of higher levels on their sites. In 
like manner, the great lakes of North 
America, if the St. Lawrence be not sedu- 
lously kept open, will, in the course of 
ages, be filled up by the gradual encroach- 
ment of their banks, and the raising of 
their bottoms with strata of vegetable and 
animal remains. New rivers would then 
flow over these increased elevations, and 
the ultimate effect would be to raise that 
part of the continent of North America 
several hundred feet above its present 
level. Even the very place on which I 
stand was, according to Webster, once 
a vast basin, extending from the Nore to 
near Reading, but now filled up with ve- 
getable and animal remains ; and the illus- 
trious CuviER has discovered a similar 
basin round the site of Paris. These 
once were Caspians, created by the choak- 
ing and final disappearance of some mighty 
rivers — they have been filled up by gra- 
dual encroachments, and now the Thames 



33^ A Morning's walk: 

arid the Seine flow over them';— -but thes^y 
if left to themselves, will, in their turn, 
generate new lakes or basins — and the 
successive recurrence of a similar series 
of causes will continue to produce similar 
effects, till interrupted by superior causes. 
This situation was so sequestered, and 
therefore so favourable to contemplation, 
that I could not avoid indulging myself. 
What then are those superior causes, I 
exclaimed, which will interrupt this series 
of natural operations to which man is 
indebted for the enchanting visions- of, hill 
and dale, and for the elysiam of beauty 
and plenty in which he finds himself? 
Alas 1 facts prove, however, that all things 
are transitory, and that change of condition 
is the constant and necessary result of that 
motion which is the chief instrument of 
eternal causation, but which, in causing 
all phenomena, wears out existing organi- 
zations while it is generating new ones. 
In the m>otions of the earth as a planet, 
doubtless are to be discovered the supe- 
rior causes which convert seas into coati- 



IFROM LONDON TO KEW. 339 

nents, and continents into seas. These 
sublime changes are occasioned by the 
progress of the perihelion point of the 
earth's orbit through the echptic, which 
passes from extreme northern to extreme 
southern declination, and vice versa, every 
10,450 years; and the maxima of the 
central forces in the perihelion occasion 
the waters to accumulate alternatively 
upon either hemisphere. During 10,450 
years, the sea is therefore gradually re- 
tiring and encroaching in both hemi- 
spheres: — hence all the varieties of ma- 
rine appearances and accumulations of 
marine remains in particular situations; 
and hence the succession of layers or 
strata, one upon another, of marine and 
earthy remains. It is evident, from obser- 
vation of those strata, that the periodical 
changes have occurred at least three times ; 
or, in other words, it appears that the 
site on which I now stand has been three 
times covered by the ocean, and three 
times has afforded an asylum for vegeta- 
bles and animals! How sublime — how 
z 25 



34>0 A moKning's walk 

interesting — how affecting is such a con* 
templation ! How transitory, therefore, 
must be the local arrangements of man, and 
how puerile the study of the science mis- 
called Antiquities ! How foolish the pride 
which vaunts itself on splendid buildings 
and costly mausoleums ! How vain the 
ostentation of large estates, of extensive 
boundaries, and of great empires f — All — 
all — will, in due time, be swept away and 
effaced by the unsparing ocean; and, if 
recorded in the frail memorials of humaft 
science, will be spoken of like the lost 
Atalantis, and remembered only as a phi- 
losophical dream ! 

Yet, how different, thought I, is the 
rich scene of organized existence within 
my view, from that which presented itself 
On this spot when our planet first took 
its station in the solar system. The sur- 
face, judging from its present materials, 
was then probably of the same inorganic 
form and structure as the primitive rocks 
which still compose the Alps and Andes ; 
9T like those indurated coral islands. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 541 

which are daily raising their sterile heads 
above the level of the great ocean, aad 
teaching by analogy the process of fertili- 
zation. At that period, so remote and so 
obscure, all must have been silent, barren, 
and relatively motionless 1 But, the atmo- 
sphere and the rains having, by decom- 
position and solution, pulverized the rocks, 
and reduced them into the various earths 
which now fertilize the surface, from the 
inorganic soon sprung the vegetable, and 
from the vegetable, in due time, sprung 
the animal; till the whole was resolved 
into the interesting assemblage of organized 
existences, which now present themselves 
to our endless wonder and gratification. 

I looked around me on this book of na- 
ture, which so eloquently speaks all lan- 
guages, and which, for every useful purpose, 
may be read without translation or com- 
mentary, by the learned and unlearned in 
every age and clime. But my imagination 
was humbled on considering my relative 
and limited powers, when I desired to 
proceed from phenomena to causes, and to 
z 3 



342 A morning's walk 

penetrate the secrets of nature below, the 
surfaces of things, I desire, said I, to 
know more than my intellectual vision 
enables me to see in this volume of un- 
erring truth. I can discover but the mere 
surfaces of things by the accidents of 
light. I can feel but the same surfaces in 
the contact of my body, and my conclu^ 
sions are governed by their reciprocal 
relations. In like manner, I can hear, 
taste, and smell, only through the acci- 
dents of other media, all distinct from the 
nature of the substances which produce 
those accidents. In truth, I am the mere 
patient of certain illusions of my senses, 
and I can know nothing beyond what I 
derive from my capacity of receiving im- 
pressions from those illusions 1 Alas I 
thought I, I am sensible how little I know; 
yet how much is there which I do not, 
and can never, know ? How much more 
am I incapable of knowings with my limit- 
ed organs of sense, than I might know if 
their capacity or their number were en- 
larged } How can a being, then, of such 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 3.43 

limited powers presume to examine nature 
beyond the jiiere surface? How can he 
measure unseen powers, of which he has 
no perception, but in the phenomena 
visible to his senses? How can he reason 
on the causes of effects by means of im- 
plements which reach no deeper than the 
accidents produced by the surfaces of 
things on the media which affect his senses, 
and which come not into contact with the 
powers that produce the phenomena? 
Ultimate causation is, therefore, hidden 
for ever froQi man ; and his knowledge can 
reach no deeper or higher than to register 
mechanical phenomena, and determine 
their mutual relations. But there is yet 
enough for man to learn, and to gratify 
the researches of his curiosity ; for, bounds 
ed as are his powers, he has always found 
that art is too long and life too short. 
He may nevertheless feel that his mmd, in 
a certain sense, is within a species of inr 
leliectual prison; but, like the terrestrial 
prison which confines his body to one pla- 
net^ no man ever lived long enough to 



344 A morning's walk 

exhaust the variety of subjects presented > 
to his contemplation and curiosity by the 
intellectual and natural world. 

We seem, however, said 1, to be better 
qualified to investigate the external laws 
which govern inorganic matter, 
than the subtle and local powers which 
govern organized bodies. We appear (so 
to speak) to be capable of looking down 
upon mere matter as matter; but incapa- 
ble, like the eye in viewing itself, of re- 
tiring to such a focal distance as to be 
able accurately to examine ourselves. It 
is not difldcult to conceive that planetary 
bodies, and other masses of inorganic 
matter, may appear to act on each other 
by mutually intercepting the pressure of 
the elastic medium which fills space; and 
the pressure intercepted by each on the 
inner surface of the other, may, by the un* 
intercepted external pressure on each, 
produce the phenomena of mutual gravi* 
tation: nor is it improbable that the 
curvilinear and rotatory motions of such 
masses may be governed by the arrange* 



I 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. S4S 

nient and mutual action of their fixed and 
their fluid parts ; nor impracticable for the 
geometrician, when the phenomena are 
determined, to measure the mechanical 
relations of the powers that produce those 
phenomena ; nor wonderful that a system 
of bodies so governed by general laws, 
should move and act in a dependent, con- 
sequent, and necessary harmony. 

Thus far the intellect of an organized 
being may reason safely on the mechanical 
relations of inorganic masses, because an 
unequal balance of forces produces their 
motions, and from combined motions re- 
sult the phenomena; but, in the principle, 
of organic life, and in the duration ancj 
final purpose of the powers of vegetables 
and animals, there are mysteries which 
baffle the ^penetration of limited observa-- 
tion and reason. I behold vegj:table$ 
with roots fixed in the ground, and through 
them raising fluids mechanically; but my 
understanding is overpowered with uiir 
satisfied wonder, when I consider tli© 
-animating principle of the meanest vegeta.-^ 



3l6 A morning's WALK 

bl€, which constitutes a selfish individu- 
ality, and enables it to give new quahties 
to those fluids by peculiar secretions, and 
to appropriate them to its own nourish- 
ment and growth. My ambition after 
wisdom is humbled in the dust, whenever 
I inquire how the first germ of every 
species came into existence; whenever I 
consider the details of the varied powers 
in the energizing agency which originates 
each successive germ ; and the independent, 
but coincident, passive receptacle which 
nurtures those germs, and, correcting 
aberrations, secures tlie continuity of every 
species — both acting as joint secondary 
causes; and whenever I reflect on the 
giowth, maturity, beauty, and variety, of 
the vegetable kingdom ! On these several 
subjects, my mind renders the profoundest 
homage to the mysterious power 
which created and continues such mira- 
cles; and, being unable to reason upon 
them from the analogy of other experience, 
I am forced to refer such sublime results 
to agency not mechanical; or, if in any 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 347 

sense mechanieal, so arranged and so moved 
as to exceed my means of conception. 

Looking once more upon the volume of 
nature which lay before me, I behold a 
superior class of organized beings, each 
individual of which, constituting an inde- 
pendent microcosm, is qualified to move 
from place to place, by bodily adaptation 
and nervous sensibility. This kingdom of 
Loco-MOTiVE BEINGS ascends, in grada- 
tions of power and intellect, from the hydatid 
to the sympathetic and benevolent philo- 
sopher ; and rises in the scale of being as 
fiiuch above the organization of vegetables, 
as vegetables themselves are superior to 
the inorganic particles in which they flou- 
rish. That tliey may subsist while they 
move, their roots, instead of being fixed in 
the soil, are turned within a cavity, or re- 
ceptacle, called the stomach, into which, 
appropriate soil^ or aliment, is introduced 
by the industry of the creature; and, that 
their powers of loco- motion may be exerted 
with safety and advantage, they are provided 
with senses for smelhng, tasting, feeling, and 



348 A morning's walk 

seeing their food ; and with a power of hear- 
ing dangers which they cannot see. They 
are, for the same purpose, enabled to profit 
by experience in powers of association, of 
reasoning by analogy, and of willing accord- 
ing to their judgments; and they are go- 
verned by an habitual desire to associate 
in species, accompanied by moral feelings, 
resulting from obligations of mutual de- 
ference and convenience. Here again, 
humanly speaking, we have a series of na- 
tural miracles— a permanent connexion 
between external objects and the sensa- 
tions, reasoning, and conduct of the or- 
ganized being. We trace the animal 
frame to two constituent parts — the one 
mechanical, the other sensitive ; the me- 
chanical consisting of bones, skin, stomach, 
blood-vessels, glands, and intestines, pro- 
vided with muscles and sinews for volun- 
tary motion ; and the sensitive, consisting 
of nerves and brain, which direct the 
motions by the feelings of the organs of 
feose— the results of the union constituting 
creatures whose essence is perception, 



FROFM LONDON TO KEW. 34^ 

springing from a system of bram and 
nerves, which, being nourished by the 
energies of circulating fluids, moved by a 
contrivance of muscles, and strengthened 
by an apparatus of bones, produce all those 
varieties of feeling, durable, moving, and 
powerful beings, whose functions con- 
tinue as long as the original expansive 
powers balance the unceasing inertia of 
their materials. But, of that subtle 
PRINCIPLE which distinguishes organic 
life from inej^t matter — of that princi- 
ple of individuality which generates the 
passion of self-love, and leads each indi- 
vidual to preserve and sustain its own exist- 
ence — of that principle which gives pecu- 
liar powers of growth, and maturity, to 
germs of vegetables and animals — and of 
that principle which, being stopped, sus* 
pended, or destroyed, in the meanest or 
greatest of them, produces the awful dif- 
ference between the living and the dead 
— we have no knowledge, and we seem 
incapable of acquiring any, by the limited 
powers of our senses. Whether this prin- 
ciple of vitality is a principle of its owo 



S50 A morning's walk 

kind, imparted from parent plants and 
animals to their germs ; or whether it 
is the result of the totality of the being, 
like the centre of a sphere, — are questions 
which must perhaps for ever remain un- 
determined by the reasoning powers of 
man. 

The creature of an hour, whose chief 
care it is to live and indulge his self-love, 
who cannot see without light, nor distinctly 
above a few inches from the eye, is wholly 
incompetent to determine those questions 
which have so long agitated philosophy ; 
as, Whether the phenomena of the crea- 
tion could be made to exist without action 
and re-action, and without space?— Whe- 
ther, consequently, there are three Eter- 
nals, or ONE Eternal? — Whether the 

SUPREME INTELLIGENCE, MATTER 

void of fortn, and space containing it, 
were all eternal — or whether the supreme 
intelligence alone was eternal, and matter 
and space created ? — W^hether the supreme 
intelligence has only been exerted proxi- 
mately or remotely on inorganic matter; 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 5^1 

space being the necessary medium of crea- 
tion, and organization being the result ?-— 
Whether the globe of the earth, in form, 
is eternal, or, according to Her.'^chel, the 
effect of **a clustering power" in the mat- 
ter of space, beginning and ending, accor- 
ding to the general analogy of organized 
beings? — Whether the earth was a comet, 
the elliptical ity of whose orbit has been re- 
duced ; and, if so, what was the origin of 
the comet? — How the secondary moun- 
tains were liquefied — whether by fire or 
by water — and what were the then rela- 
tions of the earth to the sun?— How and 
when that Hquefaction ceased ; and how, 
and when, and in what order of time, the 
several organizations arose upon them ? — 
How those organizations, at least those 
DOW existing, received the powers of se- 
condary causes for continuing their kind ? 
■' — How^ every species now lives, and grovvs, 
and maintains an. eternal succession of 
personal identities?— How these things 
were before we were, and how they now 
aje on ^very side of U3-— are topics which 



'552 A morning's walk 

have made so much learning ridiculcms, 
that, if I were to discuss them, in the best 
forms prescribed by the schools, I might 
but imitate in folly the crawling myriads, 
who luxuriate for an hour on a ripening 
peach; and who, like ourselves, may be 
led by their vanity to discuss questions ia 
regard to the eternity, and other attributes, 
of the prodigious globe, which they have 
inherited from their remote ancestry, and 
of which the early history is lost in the 
obscure traditions of their countless gene- 
rations ! 

Without presuming, however, to argue 
on premises which finite creatures cannot 
justly estimate, we may safely infer, in re- 
gard to the world in which we are placed, 
that all things which do exist, owe their 
existence to their compatibility with 
other existences; to the necessary fit- 
ness of all existing things; and to the 
HARMONY which is essential to the exist- 
"ence of any thing in the form and mode 
in which it does exist: for, without reci- 
procal COMPATIBILITY; without indivi- 



i 



IfROM LONDON TO KEW. 35^ 

dual FITNESS, and without universal 
HARMONY, nothing could continue 
TO EXIST which DOES exist; andji 
therefore, what does exist, is for the time 
necessarily compatible with other 
existences, fit or not incompatible, 
and in harmony with the whole of co- 
existent being. Every organized ex- 
istence affords, therefore, indubitable 
evidence of final causes or pur* 
POSES, competent to produce and sustain 
it; of certain relations of fitness to other 
beings; of compatibility with other 
existences; and of harmony in regard 
to the whole. And every case of de- 
struction affords evidence, that cer- 
tain FINAL CAUSES havc bccome un- 
equal to their usual office ; that the being 
is UNFIT to exist simultaneously with 
some other beings ; that its existence i3 
INCOMPATIBLE with Certain circum- 
stances, or that it is contrary to the gene- 
ral harmony of co-existent being. May 
not tlie fifty thousand species of beings 
now discoverable, be all the species whose 
A a 



354 . . A MORIS INGS WALK 

existences have continued to be fit, com- 
patible, and harmonious? May not the 
Jcnown extinction of many species be re- 
ceived as evidence, therefore, of the gra- 
dual decay of the powers which sustain 
organized being on our planet? May not 
-the extinction of one species render the 
existence of others more unfit, by diminish- 
ing the number of final causes ? And/ may 
not the successive breaking or wearing out 
of these hnks of final causes ultimately 
lead to the end of all organized being, or 
to what is commonly called, the end of 

P\JR WORLD ? 

As I approached a sequestered mansion- 
house, and some other buildings, which 
together bear the name of Brick- 
stables, I crossed a corner of the mea- 
dow towards an angle formed by a rude 
inlet of the Thames, which was running 
smoothly towards the sea at the pace of 
four miles an hour. The tide unites here 
with the ordinary current, "and, running a 
few miles above this place, exhibits twice 
a day the finely-reduced edge of that phy- 
sical balance-wheel or oscillating fluid- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 355 

pendulum which creates the earth's cen- 
trifugal power, varies the centre of its 
forces, and holds in equilibrium that deli- 
cately adjusted pressure of the medium of 
space, which pressure, without such ba- 
lance, would, by its clustering poxver, 
drive together the isolated masses of suns 
and planets. — In viewing the beautiful 
process of Nature, presented by a 
majestic river, we cease to wonder that 
priestcraft has often succeeded in teaching 
nations to consider rivers as of divine ori- 
gin, and as living emblems of Omnipotence. 
Ignorance, whose constant error it is to 
look only to the last term of every series 
of causes, and which charges Impiety on 
all who venture to ascend one term higher, 
and Atheism on all who dare to explore 
several terms (though every series implies 
a first term), would easily be persuaded 
by a crafty priesthood to consider a bene- 
ficent river as a tangible branch of the 
Godhead. But we now know that the 
waters which flow down a river, are but a 
portion of the rains and snows which, 
Aa2 



35€ A MORNING^S WAB.«t 

having fallen near its source, are reti^rn- 
ing to the ocean, there to rise again and 
re-perform the same circle t)f vapours, 
clouds, rains, and rivers. What a pro- 
cess of fertilization, and how still more 
luxuriant would have been this vicinity, if 
man had not levelled the trees and carried 
away the crops of vegetation T What a 
place of shelter would thus have beert 
afforded to tribes of araphibiae, whose ac- 
cumulated remains often surprise geolo* 
gists, though necessarily consequent on 
the fall of crops of vegetation on eacb 
other, near undistttrbed banks of rivers* 
Happily, in Britain, our coal-pits, or mi- 
neralized forests, have supplied the place* 
of our living woods; or man, regardless of 
the fitness of all the parts to the perfectioa 
of every natural result, might here, as m 
other long-peopled countries, ignorantly 
have thwarted the course of Nature by 
cutting down the timber, which, acting on 
the electricity of the clouds, affects their 
density, and causes them to fall in fertili- 
zing showers, Such has been tbe fate of 



FROM LOlfDON TO KEW. 357 

all the countries famous in antiquity. 
Persia, Syria, Arabia, parts of Turkey, 
and the Barbary coast, have been rendered 
arid deserts by this inadvertency. The 
clouds from the Western Ocean would long 
since have passed over England without 
disturbance from the conducting powers 
of leaves of trees, or blades of grass, if our 
coal-works had not saved our natural con- 
ductors; while this Thames, the agent of 
so much abundance and so much wealth, 
might, in that case, have become a shallow 
brook, like the once equally famed Jordan, 
Granicus, or Ilyssus, 

The dingy atmosphere of London 
smoke, which I had measured so accu- 
rately on Putney Heath, presented itself 
again over the woods of Chiswick Grove, 
reminding me of the cares of the busy 
world, and producing a painful contrast to 
the tranquillity of nature, to the silently 
gliding Thames, and to the unimpassioned 
simphcity of the vegetable creation. Man*, 
1 reflected, brings upon himself a thousand 
calamities as consequences of his artifices 
A a 3 



358 A morning's walk 

and pride, and then, overlooking his own 
follies, gravely investigates the origin of 
what he calls evil: — He compromises 
every natural pleasure, to acquire fame 
among transient beings, who forget him 
nightly in sleep, and eternally in death ; 
and seeks to render his name celebrated 
among posterity, though it has no identity 
with his person, and though posterity and 
himself can have no contemporaneous feelr 
ing — HE deprives himself, and all around 
him, of every passing enjoyment, to accur 
mulate wealth, that he may purchase other 
men's labour, in the vain hope of adding 
their happiness to his own — he omits to 
make effective laws to protect the poor 
against the oppressions of the rich, and 
then wears out his existence under the fear 
of becoming poor, and being thQ victim of 
his own neglect and injustice — he arms 
himself with murderous weapons, and on 
the lightest instigations practises murder as 
a science, follows this science as a regular 
profession, and honours its chiefs above 
benefactors and philosophers, in propor- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 359 

tion to the quantity of blood they have 
shed, or the raisehiefs they have perpetrated 
- — HE diss^iises the most worthless of the 
people in showy liveries, teaches them the 
use of destructive weapons, and then ex- 
cites them to murder men whom they never 
saw, by the fear of being killed if they will 
ROt kill, or of being shot for cowardice 
— HE revels in luxury and gluttony, 
and then complains of the diseases which 
result from repletion — he tries in all 
things to counteract, or improve, the pro- 
yisions of nature, and then afflicts himself 
at his disappointments — he multiplies the 
chances against his own health and life, by 
his numerous artifices, and then wonder^ 
at the frequency of their fatal results— h e 
shuts his eyes against the volume of truth, 
presented by nature, and, vainly consi- 
dering that all was made for him, founds 
on this false assumption various doubts in 
regard to the justice of eternal causation — 
HE interdicts the enjoyments of all other 
creatures, and, regarding the world as his 
property, in ipere wantonness destroys lay 



S5o A morning's walk 

riads on whom have been lavished beauties 
and perfections — he is the selfish and 
merciless tyrant of all animated nature, no 
considerations of pity or sympathy restrain- 
ing, or even qualifying, his antipathies, 
his caprices, or his gluttonies; while, more 
unhappy than his victims, he is constantly 
arraigning that system in which he is the 
chief cause of more misery than all other 
causes joined together — he forgets, that 
to live and let live, is a maxim of univer- 
sal justice, extending not only to all man's 
relations with his fellow-men, but to infe- 
rior creatures, to whom his moral obhga- 
tions are the greater, because their lives 
^nd happiness are often within his power 
• — HE is the patient of the unalterable pro- 
gress of universal causation, yet makes a 
difficulty of submitting to the impartial 
distribution of the provisions which sustain 
all other beings — he afflicts himself that 
he cannot live for ever, thouglv he sees all 
organized being decay around him, and 
though his forefathers have successively 
died to make room for him — he repines 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. S6l 

at the thought of losing that life, the use 
of which he so often perverts; and, though 
be began to exist but yesterday, thinks 
the world was made for him, and that he 
ought to continue to enjoy it for ever — 
HE sees no benevolence in the scheme of 
Nature which provides eternal youth to 
partake of the pleasures of existence; and 
which, destroying those pleasures by satiety 
of enjoyment, produces the blunted feel- 
ings of disease and old age — he mars all 
his perceptions of well-being by anticipa- 
ting the cessation of his vital functions, 
though, before that event, he necessarily 
ceases to be conscious or to suffer — he 
seeks indulgences unprovided for by the 
course of Nature, and then anxiously era- 
ploys himself in endeavouring to cheat 
others of the labour requisite to procure 
them — HE desires to govern others, but^ 
regardless of their dependence on his be- 
nevolence, is commonly gratihed in dis- 
playing the power entrusted to him, by a 
tyrannical abuse of it — he professes to 
love wisdom, yet in all his establishments^ 



362 A MORNII^g's WALK 

for promoting it he sets up false standards 
of truth; and persecutes, even with reli^ 
gious intolerance^ all attempts to swerve 
from them — -he makes laws, which, in the 
hands of mercenary lawyers, serve as 
snares to unwary poverty, but as shields to 
crafty wealth — he renders justice unat- 
tainable by its costliness; and personal 
rights uncertain by the intricacy and fic- 
I^leness of legal decisions — he possesses 
means of diffusing knowledge, in the sub- 
lime art of Printing; but, by suffering wealth 
and power to corrupt its agents, he has 
allowed it to become subservient to the 
gratification of personal malignity and 
political turpitude — he acknowledges the 
importance of educating youth, yet teaches 
them any thing rather than their social du- 
ties in the political state in which they live 
-^he adopts the customs of barbarous 
ages as precedents of practice, and founds 
on them codes for the government of en- 
lightened nations — in a word, he makes 
false and imperfect estimates of his own 
bejng, of his duties to his fellow-beings. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 3^3 

and of his relations to all being; and then 
passes his days in questioning the provi- 
dence of Nature, in ascribing Evil to 
supernatural causes, and in feverish expec- 
tations of results contrary to the necessary 
harmony of the world ! 

I was thus employed in drawing a spe- 
cies of Indictment against the errors, fol- 
lies, selfishness, and vices of my fellow-men, 
while I passed along a pleasant foot-path, 
which conducted me from Brick-stables to 
the carriage-road from Mordake to Kew. 
On arriving at the stile, I saw a colony of 
the people called Gipsies, and, gratified 
at falling in with them, I seated myself 
upon it, and, hailing the eldest of the men 
in terms of civility, he approached me 
courteously; and I promised myself, from 
the interview, a fund of information rela- 
tive to the economy of those people. 

Policy so singular, manners so different, 
and passions so varied, have for so many 
ages characterized the race of Gipsies, 
that the incident of meeting with one of 
their litUe camps agreeably roused m^ 



564 A morning's walk 

from that reverie on Matter and its modi- 
fications, into which I had fallen. What 
can be more strongly marked than the 
gipsy physiognomy? Their lively jet-black 
eyes — their small features — their tawny 
skins — their small bones — and their shrill 
voices, bespeak them to be a distinct tribe 
of the human race, as different from the 
English nation as the Chinese, the North- 
American Indians, or the woolly-headed 
Africans. They seem, in truth, as dif- 
ferent in their bodies, and in their instincts, 
from the inhabitants of England and other 
countries in which they live, as the spaniel 
from the greyhound, or as the cart-horse 
from the Arabian. Our instincts, propen- 
sities, or fit and necessary habits, seem to 
lead us, like the ant, to lay up stores; 
theirs, like the grasshopper, to depend on 
the daily bounties of nature; — we, with 
the habits of the beaver, build fixed habi^ 
tations; and they, like the deer, range 
from pasture to pasture; — we, with aa 
instinct all our own, cultivate arts; they 
f:pntent themselves with picking up our 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 26$. 

superfluities; — we make laws and arrange 
governments ; they know no laws but those 
of personal convenience, and no govern- 
ment beyond that of muscular force grow- 
ing out of the habits of seniority; — and we 
chensh passions of ambition and domina- 
tion, consequent on our other arrange- 
ments, to which they are utter strangers. 
Thus, we indulge our propensities, and 
they indulge theirs. Which are the hap- 
piest beings, might be made a question-^ 
but I am led to decide in favour of the 
arts and comforts of civilized life. These 
people appear to possess the natural fee- 
bleness and delicacy of man, without the 
power of shielding themselves from the 
accidents of nature. Their darhng object 
appears to be, to enjoy practical personal 
liberty. They possess less, and they en- 
joy fewer, luxuries than others; but they 
escape slavery in all the Protean shapes 
by which it ensnares the rest of mankind. 
They do not act as menial servants, and 
obey the caprice of a master; nor do they 
work as labourers for a tythe of the advan^ 



366 ^ A MORNrNc/s WALK 

tages of their industry. They do not; as 
tenants of land, pay half the produce in 
rentals; nor do they, as anxious traders, pay 
half their profits to usurers or capitalists. 
They are not liable to the conscriptions of 
a militia-ballot: nor to be dratrged from 
their families by the frightful tyranny of 
the impress. And, in fine, they are not 
compelled to contribute a large portion of 
their earnings in taxes to support folly 
or prodigality ; nor are they condemned 
to pay, through their successive genera- 
tions, the interest of money lent for the hire 
of destroyers of men, who vvere, like them- 
selves, guilty only of resolving to be free. 
Yet, if they are exempt from the torture 
of civilized man, of having the comforts he 
enjoys torn from him by the sophistry of 
law, or the tyranny of governments ; they 
suffer from hour to hour the torments of 
want, and the apprehension of not meet- 
ing with renewed supplies. If they are 
gayer than civilized man, it is because 
their wants are fewer, and therefore fewer 
of them are unsatisfied; and probably the 

2 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. S^f 

gaiety which they assume before strangers 
may result from their constitution, which, 
under the same circumstances, may render 
them gayer than others, just as a French- 
man is gayer than an EngUshman, or an 
EngUshman than a North-American Indian. 
In a word, in looking upon this race, 
and upon the other recorded varieties of 
our species, from the woolly-headed Afri- 
can to the long-haired Asiatic, from the 
blue-eyed and white-haired Goth to the 
black-eyed and black-haired North Ame- 
rican, and from the gigantic Patagonian 
to the dwarfish Laplander ; we are led to 
believe, that the human species must radi- 
cally have been as various as any other 
species of animated beings ; and it seems 
as unphilosophical as impious, to limit the 
powers of creation to pairs of one kind, 
and to ascribe their actual varieties to the 
operations of chance. 

As I proceeded from the stile towards 
their tents, the apparent chief of the gang 
advanced withja firm step, holding a large 
knife in one hand, and some eatables in 



^Ss A morning's walk 

ihe otLer ; and he made many flourishes 
with his knife, seemingly in the hope of 
intimidating me, if I proved an enemy. I 
civilly begged his pardon for intruding 
upon their camp, and assured him that 
mine was a mere visit of curiosity ; that I 
was not a justice of the peace, and had no 
desire to disturb them. He then told me 
I was very welcome, and 1 advanced ta 
their chief tent. "But," said I to this 
man, ''you have not the gipsy colour and 
features?" *' O, no," he replied, ''lam 
no gipsy — the people call us all gipsies—-' 

but I am by trade a tinker — I hve in— 

Court, Shoreditch, in the winter ; and 
during the summer I travel the country, 
and get my livelihood by my trade." 
Looking at others of the group, who were 
sitting at the entrance of two tents, I 
traced two sets of features among them, one 
plainly English, and the other evidently 
Gipsy ; and, mentioning this circumstance, 
he replied, "O yes — though I am not 
a gipsy, my wife is, and so is her old mo- 
ther there — they are true gipsies, ever^ 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 569 

inch of 'em. This man, my wife's brother, 
is a gipsy — we are useful to one another 
in this way of Hfe — and the old woman 
there is as knowing a gipsy as any in the 
country, and can tell your fortune, sir, if 
you like to hear it." — His character of the 
elder gipsy, who resembled Munden's 
witch in Macbeth, produced considerable 
mirth in the whole party ; and the old wo- 
man, who was engaged in smoking her pipe, 
took it from her mouth, and said : ''I ayn't 
told so many gentlefolks their fortunes to 
no purpose, and I'll tell your's, sir, if 
you'll give me something to fill my pipe." 
I smiled, and told her I thanked her; but, 
as I was not in love, I felt no anxiety to 
hear my fortune. — '^Aye, sir," said she, 
**many's the lover I've made happy, and 
inany's the couple that I've brought toge- 
ther." — Recollecting Farquhar's incident 
in the Recruiting Officer, I remarked: — 
^^You tell the ladies what their lovers 
hire you to tell them, I suppose — and the 
gentlemen what the ladies request you to 
tell them?"— ''Why, yes," said she, 
fib 



370 A morning's walk 

'^something like it;" and laughing — ''aye, 
sir, I see you're in the secret!" — *'And 
then you touch golden fees, I suppose?" 
— ''Yes," interrupted the first man, **IVe 
known her get five or six guineas on a 
wedding-day, part from the lady, and part 
from the gentleman ; and she never wants 
a shilling, and a meal's victuals, when she 
passes many houses that I could name." — 
*' True, "exclaimed the old beldame, ''that's 
^11 true; and I've made many fine folks 
happy in my time, and so did my mother 
before me — she was known far and near!" 
I had no occasion to remark on the silly 
dupes on whom they practised these impo- 
sitions, for the whole party expressed their 
sentiments by bursts of laughter while the 
old vToman was speaking : but I could not 
help exclaiming, that I thought she ought 
to make the fools pay well who gave cre- 
dit to her prophecies. — "Aye," said she, 
"1 see you don't believe in our art — but 
we tell all by the handT — I felt of course 
that the hand was as good a key to deter- 
mine the order of probable events as pla- 



FROM LONDON TO KEW, 371 

nets, cards, or tea-sediments ; and there- 
fore, concluding that gipsies, like astrolo- 
gers and other prophets, are imposed on 
by the doctrine of chances, I dropped the 
conversation; but felt it my duty to give 
the old woman a shilling to buy some 
tobacco for her pipe. 

I now surveyed the entire party, and ii> 
three tents found there were three men, 
two women, besides the old woman, four 
girls, and two boys. One of the tents was 
placed at a little distance from the others, 
and in that resided a young married cou- 
ple. — *^And pray," sai4|I, ''where and 
bow do you marry?" — ''Why," said the 
first man, "we marry like other folks — 
they were married at Shoreditch Church 
—I was married to my old woman here at 
Hammersmith Church — and my brother- 
in-law here was married at Acton Church. " 
— "Then," said I, " you call yourselves 
Christians?"— At this question they all 
laughed; and the first man said, that, " If 
it depends on our going to church, we 
Can't say much about it; but, as we do 

B b s; 



372 A morning's walk 

nobody any harm, and work for our living, 
some in one way, and some in another, we 
suppose we are as good Christians as many 
other folks." 

While this conversation passed, I heard 
them speaking to each other in a language 
somewhat resembling Irish, but it had 
tones more shrill ; and the first man, not- 
withstanding his English physiognomy, as 
well as the others, spoke with a foreign 
accent, not unlike that of half-anglicized 
Hindoos. I mentioned this peculiarity; 
but he assured me that neither he nor any 
of the party had been out of England. I 
now inquired about their own language, 
when one of them said it \M2i.% Maltese ; but 
the other said it was their cant language. 
I asked their names for various objects 
which I pointed out ; but, after half a do- 
zen words, the first man inquired, if I had 
"ever heard of one Sir Joseph Banks — 
for," said he, "that gentleman once paid 
me a guinea for telling him twenty words 
in our language." Perceiving, therefore, 
that he rated this species of information 



FROM LONDON TO KEVV. 373 

very high, and aware that the subject has 
been treated at large by many authors, I 
forbore to press him further. 

The ground served them for a table, and 
the grass for a table-cloth. The mixture 
of their viands with dirty rags, and other 
disgusting objects, proved that they pos- 
sess no sentiment, in regard to cleanliness, 
superior to lower animals. Like philoso- 
phical chemists, they evidently admitted the 
elementary analogy of what the delicate 
sense of society classes under contrasted 
heads of dirty and clean. Necessity, in 
this respect, has generated fixed habits; 
and they are, consequently, as great 
strangers to the refined feeling which actu- 
ates cleanly housewives, as lawyers are to a 
spirit of benevolence, or ministers of state 
to a passion for reform. Their furniture 
consisted merely of some dirty rags and 
blankets, and of two or three bags, baskets, 
and boxes; while their tents were formed of 
a pole at each end, with a ridge pole, co- 
vered with blanketing, which was stretch- 
fid obliquely to the ground by wooden 
jB b 3 



374 A morning's walk 

pegs. Such rudeness, and such sirapHcity, 
afforded a striking contrast to the gorgeous 
array of oriental splendour in the palaces of 
Royalty; and to the varied magnificence 
displayed in those warehouses whence an 
Oakley, or a Bullock, supplies the mansions 
of wealth and grandeur. 

Indeed, as I stood conversing with these 
people, how could 1 help marvelling that, 
in the most polished district of the most ci- 
vihzed of nations, with the grand pagoda of 
Kew-Gardens in full view on one hand, and 
the towers of the new Bastile Palace in sight 
on the other, I should thus have presented 
under my eyes a family of eleven persons 
in no better condition than the Hottentots 
in their kraals, the Americans in their wig- 
wams, or the Tartars in their equally rude 
tents. 1 sighed, however, to think that 
difference of natural constitution and 
varied propensities were in England far 
from being the only causes of the proxi- 
mity of squalid misery to ostentatious 
pomp. I felt too that the manners of 
these gipsies were assimilated to those of 

3 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 375 

the shepherd tribes of the remotest anti- 
quity, and that in truth I saw before me a 
family of the pastoral ages, as described in 
the Book of Genesis. They wanted their 
flocks and herds ; but the possession of 
these neither accorded with their own po- 
hcy, nor with that of the country in which 
they reside. Four dogs attached to their 
tents, and two asses grazing at a short dis- 
tance, completed such a grouping as a 
painter would, I have no doubt, have 
found in the days of Abraham in every 
part of Western Asia, and as is now to be 
found among the same people, at this day, 
in every country in Europe. They exhi- 
bit that state of man in which thousands 
of years might pass away without record 
or improvement: and, whether they are 
Egyptians, Arabs, Hindoos, Tartars, or a 
peculiar variety of our species ; whether 
they exhibit man in the rude state which, 
according to Lord Montboddo, most nearly 
approximates to the ourang-outang of the 
oriental forests ; or whether they are consi- 
dered in their separated character — they 



37b A morning's waek 

form an interesting study for the philoso- 
pher, the economist, and the antiquary. 

In a few minutes after I had left the 
gipsy camp, I was overtaken by a girl of 
fifteen, the quickness of whose breathing 
indicated excessive alarm. '* O, sir," said 
she, **I'm so glad to come up with you--- 
I'm so frightened — I've been standing this 
quarter of an hour on the other side of 
the stile, vvaiting for somebody to come 
by." — '' And what has so frightened you ?" 
said I.—*' O, sir," said the still terrified 
girl, looking behind her, and increasing 
her pace, ** those gipsies and witches — they 
frighten every body; and I wo'dn't have 
come this way for all the world if I'd 
known they'd been there." — ^'But," said 
I, '*what are you frightened at? have you 
heard that they have done harm to any 
one?"— *'0 dear! yes, sir, I've heard my 
mother say they bewitches people ■; and, 
one summer, two of them beat my father 
dreadfully." — ''But what did he do to 
them?" — "Why, he was a little tipsy, to 
be sure ; but he says be only called 'era a 



FROiM LONDON TO KEW. 577 

pack of fortune-tellers." — ^' And are all 
the children in this neighbourhood as much 
frightened at them as you ?" — " O yes, sir; 
but some of the boys throw stones over the 
hedge at them, but we girls are afraid 
they'll bewitch us. Did you see the old 
hag, sir?" The poor girl asked this ques- 
tion with such simplicity, and with a faith 
so confirmed, that 1 had reason once more 
to feel astonishment at the superstition 
which infests and disgraces the common 
people of this generally enlightened na- 
tion I Let me hope that the tutors in the 
schools of Bell and Lancaster will consi- 
der it as part of their duties, to destroy the 
vulgar faith in ghosts, omens, fortune- 
teUing, fatality, and witchcraft. 

On my right, my attention was attracted 
by the battlements of a new Gothic build- 
ing, which I learnt, from the keeper of 
an adjoining turnpike, was called Kew 
Priory, and is a summer retreat of 
a wealthy Catholic maiden lady, Miss 
Doughty, of Richmond- Hill ; after whom 
a street has recently been named in Loii- 



378 A MORNING S WALK 

don. Learning that the lady was not 
there, I turned aside to take a nearer 
view ; and, ringing at the gate, in the hope 
of seeing the interior, a female, who 
opened it, told me that it was a rule of the 
place, that no man could be admitted be- 
sides the Rev. Mr. , the Catholic 

priest. 1 learnt that the Priory, a beauti- 
ful structure on a lawn, consisted merely of 
a chapel, a room for refreshments, and a 
library; and that the lady used it for a 
change of scene in the long afternoons of 
the summer season. The enclosed space 
contained about 24 acres, on the banks of 
the Thames, and is subdivided by Pilton's 
invisible fences. Behind the priory, there 
is a house for the bailiff and his wife, a ca- 
pacious pheasantry, an aviary, and exten- 
sive stables. Nothing can be more taste- 
ful as a place of indulgence for the luxury 
of wealth ; but it is exposed to the incon- 
venience of floods from the river, which 
sometimes cover the entire site to a con- 
siderable depth. 

Another quarter of a mile, along a dead 



FKOM LONDON TO KEW. 379 

flat, brought me upon Kew-Green. As 
I approached it, the woods of Kew and 
Richmond Gardens presented a varied and 
magnificent fohage, and the pagoda of 
ten stories rose in splendour out of the 
woods. Richmond-hill bounded the hori- 
zon on the left, and the smoky atmosphere 
of Brentford obscured the air beyond the 
houses on Kew-Green. 

As I quitted the lane, I beheld, on my left, 
the long boundary-wall of Kew-Gardens ; 
on which a disabled sailor has drawn in 
chalk the effigies of the whole British navy, 
and over each representation appears the 
name of the vessel, and the number of her 
guns. He has in this way depicted about 
800 vessels, each five or six feet long, and 
extending, with intervening distances, above 
a mile and a half. As the labour of one 
man, the whole is an extraordinary per- 
formance; and I was told the decrepit 
draughtsman derives a competency from 
passing travellers. 

Kew-Green is a triangular area of 
about thirty acres. Nearly in the centra 



SSO A morning's walk 

is the chapel of St. Anne. On the eastern 
side is a row of family houses ; on the 
north-western side a better row, the backs 
of which look to the Thames ; and on the 
south side stand the boundary-wall of 
Kew-Gardens, some buildings for soldiery, 
^nd the plain house of Ernest, duke of 
Cumberland. Among other persons of 
note and interest who reside here, are 
the two respectable daughters of Stephen 
Duck, ^the poet, who deserve to-be men- 
tioned as relics of a former age. In the 
western corner stand the buildings called 
Kew Palace, in which George III. passed 
many of the early years of his reign, and 
near which he began a new structure a few 
years before his confirmed malady — which 
I call the Bastile Palace, from its resem- 
blance to that building, so obnoxious to 
freedom and freemen. On a former occa- 
sion, I have viewed its interior, and I am 
at loss to conceive the motive for pre- 
ferring an external form, which rendered 
it impracticable to construct within it more 
than a series of large closets, boudoirs, 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 381 

and rooms like oratories. Ttie works 
have, however, been suspended since the 
unhappy seclusion of the Royal Architect ; 
and it is improbable, at least in this gene- 
ration, that they will be resumed. The 
foundation is in a bog close to the Thames, 
and the principal object within its view is 
the dirty town of Brentford, on the oppo- 
site side of the river. 

I had intended to prolong my route to 
the western corner of the Green; but, in 
passing St. Anne's Chapel, 1 found the 
pew-openers engaged in wiping the pews 
and washing the aisles. I knew that that 
child of Genius, Gainsborough, the 
painter, lay interred here ; and, desirous 
of paying my homage to his grave, I in- 
quired for the spot. As is usual in regard 
to this class of people, they could give me 
no information ; yet one of them fancied 
she had heard such a name before. I 
was therefore obliged to wait while the 
sexton or clerk was fetched, and in the 
interim 1 walked into the chapel. I was, 
in truth, well re -paid for the time it cost 



382 A morning's walk 

me ; for I never saw any thing prettier, ex- 
cept Lord Le Despencer's exquisite struc- 
ture at West Wycombe. As the royal 
^ family usually attend here when they re- 
side at Kew, it is superbly fitted up, and 
the architecture is in the best taste. The 
seats for the family fill the gallery, and on 
the ground-floor there are forty-eight pews 
of brown oak, adapted for four and six 
persons each. Several marble monuments 
of singular beauty adorn the walls; but the 
record of a man of genius absorbed every 
attraction of ordinary rank and tide. It 
was a marble slab, to the memory of 
Meyer, the painter, — with lines by the 
amiable poet. Hay ley ; and I was led, 
by respect for painter and poet, to copy 
the whole : — 

Jeremiah Meyer, R.A. 

Painter in Miniature and Enamel to 

his Majesty Geo. III. 

Died January 19, 1789. 

Meyer I in tliy works, the world will ever see 
How great the loss of Art in losing thee ; 
But Love and Sorrow find the words too weak. 
Nature's keen sufferings 011 thy death to speak: 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 383 

Through all her duties, what a heart was thine ; 
In thy cold dust what spirit used to shine I 
Fancy, and truth, and gaiety, and zeal. 
What most we love in life, and, losing, feel ; 
Age after age may not one artist yield 
Equal to thee, iu Painting's ample field; 
And ne'er shall sorrowing Earth to Heaven coramenci 
,A fonder parent, or a firmer friend. 

William Hayley, 1789. 

From hence I strolled into the vestry, 
where I found a table of fees, draw a with 
a degree of precision which merits imita- 
tion. It appears, that the fees for mar-» 
iiiAGES with a licence are \0s, 6d,, an4 
by banns 5s, That those for burials, 
to the minister, if the prayers are said in 
the church, are 5s. ; if only at the grave, 
2s, 6d, The graves are six feet deep; 
and, in the church, the coffin must be of 
lead. The clerk is entitled to kaif, and 
the sexton to about a third more. A 
vault in the church is charged 21/., and in 
the church-yard 10/. 10^.; with 51, 5s, 
and 2/. 2<^. respectively for each time of 
opening. To non-residents they are dour 
ble.— I had scarcely finished this extract, 



381 A morning's walk 

ivhen the clerk's or sexton's assistant made 
his appearance ; and on the south side of 
the church-yard he brought me to the 
tomb of Gainsborough. 

**Ahl friend/' said I, ''this is a hal- 
lowed spot— here lies one of Britain's 
favoured sons, whose genius has assisted in 
exalting her among the nations of the 
earth." — ''Perhaps it was so," said the 
man, "but we know nothing about the 
people buried, except to keep up their mo- 
numents, if the family pay ; and, perhaps, 
Sir, you belong to this family; if so, I'll 
tell you how much is due." — "Yes, truly, 
friend," said I, "I am one of the great 
family bound to preserve the monument of 
Gainsborough; but, if you take me for 
one of his relatives, you are mistaken." — 
"Perhaps, Sir, you may be of the family, 
but were not included in the Will, there- 
fore are not obligated." I could not now 
avoid looking with scorn at the fellow ; but, 
as the spot claimed better feelings, I gave 
him a trifle for his trouble, and mildly told 
him 1 would not detain him. 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 385 

The monument being a plain one, and 
making no palpable appeal to vulgar ad^ 
miration, was disregarded by these people; 
for it is in death as in life, if you would 
excite the notice of the multitude, you 
must in the grave have a splendid mauso- 
leum, or in walking the streets you must 
wear fine clothes. It did not fall in the 
way of the untaught, on this otherwise 
polite spot, to know that they have among 
them the remains of t pie first painter 
OF OUR NATIONAL SCHOOL, in faucy- 
pictures, and one of the first in the 
classes of landscape and portrait ; — a man 
who recommended himself as much by his 
superiority, as by his genius ; as much by 
the mode in which his genius was deve- 
loped, as by the perfection of his works; 
and as much by his amiable private charac^ 
ter as by his eminence in thechief of Fancy's 
Arts. There is this difference between a 
poet and a painter — that the poet only ex- 
hibits the types of ideas in words, limited 
in their sense by his views, or his powers 
of expression; but the painter is called 
C c 



386 

upon to exhibit the ideas themselves in a 
tangible shape, and made out in all their 
parts and most beautiful forms. The poet 
may write with a limited knowledge of his 
subject, and he may produce any partial 
view of it which his powers enable him to 
exhibit in a striking manner; but the suc- 
cessful painter must do all this, and he 
must execute with his hand as well as con- 
ceive with his mind. The poet, too, has 
the advantage of exhibiting his ideas in 
succession, and he avails himself of stops 
and pauses; but the great painter is obliged 
to set his entire subject before the eye 
at once, and all the parts of his composi- 
tion, his imagination, and his execution, 
challenge the judgment as a whole. A 
great poet is nevertheless a just object of 
admiration among ordinary persons — but 
far more so a great painter, who assumes 
the power of creation, and of improving 
on the ordinary combinations of the Crea- 
tor. Yet such a man was Thomas 
Gainsborough, before whose modest 
tomb I stood ! 



FROM LONDt)N TO KEW. 387 

The following are the words engraven on 
the stone: — 

Thomas Gainsborough, esq. 

died August 2, 1788. 

Also the body of 

Gainsborough Dupont, esq. 

who died Jan. 20, 1797, 

aged 42 years. 

Also, Mrs. Margaret Gainsborough, 

wife of the above 

Thomas Gainsborough, esq. 

who died Dec. 17, 1798, 
in the 72d year of her age. 
A little to the eastward lie the remains 
of another illustrious son of art, the mo- . 
dest ZoFFANY, whose Florence Gallery, 
Portraits of the Royal Family, and other 
pictures, will always raise him among the 
highest class of painters. He long resided 
on this Green, and, like Michael Angelo, 
Titian, and our own West, produced 
master-pieces at four-score. The words 
on the monument are: 

Sacred to the Memory 

of John Zoffany, R.A. 

who died Nov, 11, 1810, 

aged 87 years. 

<? eg 



388 A morning's walk 

It was a remarkable coincidence, that 
the bones of Gainsborough and Zof- 
FA NY should thus, without premeditation, 
have been laid side by side ; and that, but a 
few weeks before I paid my visit to this 
spot, delighted crowds had been daily 
drawn together to view their principal 
works, combined with those of Wilson 
and Hogarth, in forming an attractive 
metropolitan exhibition. On that occa- 
sion every Englishman felt proud of the 
native genius of our Gainsborough. 
It was ably opposed in one line by a 
Wilson, and in another by a Zoffany ; 
yet the works of the untutored Gains- 
borough and Hogarth served to prove 
that every great artist must be born such ; 
and that superiority in human works is the 
result of original aptitude, and cannot be 
produced by any servile routine of educa- 
tion, however specious, imposing, sedu- 
lous, or costly. 

This valley of the Thames is, however, 
sanctified every-where by relics which call 
for equal reverence. But a mile distant 
on my right, in Chiswick Church-yard, lie 



FROM LO*rj)ON TO KEW. 389 

the remains of the painting moralist Ho- 
garth; who invented a universal charac- 
ter, or species of moral revelation, intelligi- 
ble to every degree of intellect, in all ages 
and countries ; who opened a path to the 
kindred genius of a Burnett and a 
Wilkie; and who conferred a deathless 
fame on the manners, habits, and chief 
characters of his time. And, but a mile 
on my left, in Richmond Church, lie the 
remains of Thomsoist, the poet of nature, 
of liberty, and of man — who displayed his 
powers only for noble purposes; who scorn- 
ed, like the vile herd of modern rhyme- 
sters, to ascribe glory to injustice, heroism 
to the assassins of the champions of li- 
berty, or wisdom to the mischievous preju- 
dices of weak princes ; and who, by assert- 
ing in every line the moral dignity of his 
art, became an example of poetical re- 
nown, which has been ably followed by 
Glover, Akenside, Cowper, Ro- 
binson, Burns, Barlow, Barbauld, 
Wolcot, M0GRE3 and Byron. 
The fast- declining Sun, and my wearied 
c c 3 



390 A morning's walk 

limbs here reminded me that I was the 
slave of nature, and of nature's l^ws; and 
that I had neither time, nor power, to ex- 
curse or go farther. My course, there- 
fore, necessarily terminated on this spot; 
and here I must take leave of the reader, 
who has been patient, or liberal enough, 
to accompany me. 

For my own part, I had been highly 
gratified with the great volume, ten or 
twelve miles long, by two or three broad, 
in the study of which I had employed the 
lengthened morning ; though this volume of 
my brief analysis the reader will doubtless 
find marked by the short-sightedness 
and imperfections which attend every 
attempt of human art to compress an infi- 
nite variety into a finite compass. 

In looking back at the incidents of the 
day, which the language of custom has, 
with reference to our repasts, denominated 
THE MORNING, I could not avoid feeling 
the strong analogy which exists between 
such an excursion as that which I have here 
•described and the life of man. Like 
that, and all things measured by time and 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. 591 

SPACE, it had had its beginning — its 
eventful course — and its end deter- 
mined by physical causes. 

On emerging in the morning, I foresaw 
as Httle as the child foresees his future life, 
what were to be the incidents of my jour- 
ney. I proceeded in each successive hour 
even as he proceeds in each year. I jos- 
tled no one, and no one disturbed me. 
My feelings were those of peace, and I 
suffered from no hostility. My inclina- 
tions were virtuous, and I have experi- 
enced the rewards of virtue. Every step 
had therefore been productive of satisfac- 
tion, and I had no-where had cause to 
look behind me with regret. 

In this faithful journal, I have ven- 
tured to smile at folly; I have honestly 
reprehended bad passions, and I have sin- 
cerely sympathized with their victims. 
May all my readers be led to smile, repre- 
hend, and sympathize with me ; and I soli- 
cit this result — for their sakes — for the 
sake of truth — and in the hope that, if our 
feelings have been reciprocal, our mutual 
labours will not have been wasted ! At the 



392 

end of my short career, I conscientiously 
looked back on the incidents of my course 
with the complacency with which all may 
look back in old-age on the incidents 
of well-spent lives. Let no one sneer 
at the comparison, for, when humeri 
life has passed away, in what degree are it& 
multiphed cares and chequered scenes 
more important than the simple events 
which attend a morning's walk ? Look on 
the graves of that church-yard, and see in 
THEM the representations of hundreds of 
anxious lives ! Are not those graves, then,, 
said I, the end of thousands of busy cares 
and ambitious projects ? Was not life the 
HERE DREAM of their now senseless te- 
nants — hke the trackless path of a bird in 
the air, or of a fish in the waters ? Were 
they not the Phantasmagoria which, 
in their day, filled up the shifting scene 
of the world,— and are we not, in our 
several days, similar shadows, which mo- 
dify the light for a season, and then 
disappear to make room for others like 
ourselves ? May not the events of a 

1 



I 



FROM LONDON TO KEW. SQS 

morning which slides away, and leaves no 
traces behind it, be correctly likened there- 
fore to the entire course of human life ? 
The one, like the other, may be well or 
ill spent — idly dissipated or beneficially 
employed;— and the chequered incidents 
will be found to be similar to those which 
mark the periods of the longest life. 

In conclusion, I cannot avoid wishing 
that my example may be followed, in other 
situations, by minds variously stored and 
directed by different inquiries. Like the 
day which has just been recorded, the inci- 
dents of every situation, and the thoughts 
which pass without intermission through 
every mind, would, in a similar portion of 
time, fill similar volumes, which, as indices 
of man's intellectual machinery, might 
serve the purpose of the dial of a clock, or 
the gnomon of a sun-dial, and prove agree- 
able sources of amusement, as well as 
efficacious means of disseminating valuable 
principles and useful instruction* 



MAP 

OF THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE. 




INDEX. 



-nLccuMULATioN of property, its misery to all, 44. 
Admiralty, British, its characteristics, 9. 
Addington, Mr. his residence, 167. 

■ , political character, 280. 

Almanacks of prognostication, their prodigious sale, 252, 

Alfred the Great, his rare merits, 8. 

American Aloe, reflections on, 59. 

Anne Boleyn, her interview with Henry the Eightli, 58. 

Animal motion, economy of, 124. 

Ancestors, their number ascertained, 259. 

Ancestry, no ground of pride, 262. 

Anglican Church, its true foundation, 266. 

Ant-hill, like the British metropolis, 151. 

Antiquities, folly of the science so called, 340. 

Archbishops of Canterbury, their ancient residence, 303* 

Argument in behalf of poverty, 106. 

Aristocracy of trade characterized, 101. 

Arithmetic, its connexion with nature, 189. 

Articles of Faith,, necessity of revising, 267. 

Asparagus, its extensive cultivation, 55. 

Assembly, a subscription one described, 91. 

Astrology, its pretensions investigated, 234, 241. 

Author, his feelings on concluding his Walk, 389. 

B. 

Barber, Alderman, his tomb and merit, 253. 

Battersea-bridge, reflections on its toll, 41. 

Ballot, choice by, its pernicious effect and erroneour 

principle, 91. 
Bakewell, Mr. his mode of riding, 125, 



^a 



INDEX. 

!6arnes Poor-house, libel on political economy, 193. 

Common, its geological phenomena, 197. - 

Church-yard, reflections on, 215. 

Bastile Palace, at Kew, 379. 

Beggars, their habits and gains, 3 and 4. 

Bee-hive, its buzz that of a distant town, 152. 

Besborough, Lord, his seal, 177. 

Bells, abuse of them, 210, 282, 

Blenkinsop's steam-engine, its convenient powers, 76, 

Black balls, a majority of, how produced, 93. 

Blair's Universal Preceptor, its merits, 294. 

Box-trees, ancient ones, 311. 

Botanic Garden, at Chelsea, 37. 

Bolingbroke, Lord, his house at Battersea, 51. 

, recollections of, 54. 
Book-clubs, a test of intellectual improvement, 98r 
Book of Nature, described, 341. 
British society, its radical diseases, 161. 
Brunei], Mr. his workshops, 45. 
Braraah, Mr. his ingenuity, 21. 
Britain, mistress of imperial Rome, 36. 
Buckingham House, notice of, 20. 
Burke, his bigotry, 39. 
Burial fees, account of, 382. 

C. 

Caesar, his passage of the Thames, 35. 
Causevvays, necessity of improving, 126. 
Cards, their absurd prognostics, 251. 
Cause of causes, its instruments, 188. 

, its incomprehensibleness, 272. 

Catechism of Social Duties, its importance, 333, 

Causes, physical and mental, defined, 238. 

Causation, original, questions upon, 343. 

Centinarian in Chelsea Hospital, 34. 

Cemeteries, ought to be open, 216. 

Certainty a?one necessary, 237. 

Chorus of the eye, 149. 

Chaldeans, their demonology, 324. 

Chances, laws of, govern all prognostication, 247, &c, % 

Church, system of attendance, 264. 

— - — , National, grounds for its moderation, 266. 

Chabannes; Marquis de, his speculations, 223, 



INDEX. 

Chiswick, its bells and Church, 211. 

Charters of Liberty, enumerated, 10. 

Chelsea bunns, notice of, 25. 

Christianity, its total failure in preserving peace, 34* 

, vulgar definition of, 371. 

Changes, geological, their causes, 338. 

Civilized and savage society contrasted, 102, 364. 

Clerks, their ease of heart, 12. 

Cleanliness, an auxiliary of virtue, 231. 

Courtezans, cause of their turpitude, 27. 

Contentment, its difficult acquisition, 43. 

Commercial enterprise, instance of, 42. 

Commons, their anti-social character, 155, 161. 

Complaints of the poor, 106. 

Cost of the poor at Wandsworth, 114. 

Cottages, mile-stone and marine ones proposed, 127. 

Concl], its somid tliat of a distant town, 152. 

Cottage ornee described, 175. 

Covent-garden market, mode of supplying, 225. 

Compatibility of relative existences, 352. 

Common Council of Loudon, its patriotic conduct^ 28^ 

note. 
Creation, its never ceasing agents, 198, &c. 

r-, its progress, 335. 

Cuvier, M. his geological discoveries, 337. 



D. 

D'Antraigues, Count and Countess, Iheir horrible as- 
sassination, 219. 
Dancing assemblies, their mistaken arrangements, 91. 
Death, how a source of consolation, 62. 
Demon of war described, 89. 

Devonshire, Duchess of, her amiable character, 213. 
Demonology, its absurdities, 269. 
Dead, the sympathy towards, 216. 
Descendants, their numbers ascertained, 257. 
Distilleries, the bad policy of encouraging them, 64. 
Dimsdale, Sir Harry, Mayor of Garrat, 80. 
Don Saltero, his museum, 38. 
Dolland's achromatics, their misapplication, 145. 
Dormitories of avarice described, 127. 
Dreams, no prognostics, 249, 251, 
Dramas of real life, 117. 



INDEX. 

Druids, their impostures, 172. 
Dninkenness, its pernicious effects, 65. 

, its cause, 66, 

Dundas, Iiis baneful orgies, 192. 
Dnnstan, Sir Jeffery, Mayor of Garrat, 7&> 

E. 

East-Sheen, its pleasant sights, 232, 278, 
Earth, the, its primative state, 340. 
Economy of a workhouse, 109. 

, political, its primary law, 139. 

Education, obligation to make it universal, 332. 

— — — — , ■ to teach public duties, 362: 

Egyptians, their absurd mythology, 324. 

Ellenborough, Lord, his residence, 178. 

Electricity, illustrations of, 183 to 191. 

Election at Garrat, described, 81. 

Eloquence of Pitt, recollections of, 162. 

England, its exemplary road system, 122. 

Enclosure Bill proposed, 158. 

Enclosing parks, objections to, 172. 

Entrails of animals, no prognostics, 249. 

End of the world, phenomena leading to it, 354* 

Erasmus, his character, 39. 

Essex, cleanliness of its towns, 230. 

Eiernals, what are so, 350. 

External species infinite in number, 353. 

Excise system, its mischievous effects, 255. 

Experience, a transcendent quality in a statesman, 165. 

, a chief test of truth, 268. 

Eye, concert played on it, 148, 



Family group in a workhouse, 110. 
Farming out the poor, its inhumanity, 113. 
Fate and fatality, discussion on, 235 to 244. 
Family of man, its necessarj' co-mixture, 259. 
Fever of the brain, its mental hallucinations, 71, 271. 
Fertility, means of preserving, 314. 
Ferdinand, cost of his restoration, 42. 
Female education, discussion respecting, 292, 
F^ar, its operation on the mind, 70. 



INDEX. 

JFemales on fire, mode of extinguishing, 139. 

Ferme ornee, described, 175. 

Final causes, their nature, 353. 

Fitness in nature, the primary law, 200, 352. 

Fires, mode of preventing, 135, 138. 

Fire-house, Hartley's, 135. 

— ^ — , interesting prospect from, 145, 

Finance, Pitt's absurd system, 164. 

Flame, when ungovernable, 139. 

Food of a labouring family, 105. 

Foot-paths, necessity for good ones, 125. 

Fortune-telling, its errors exposed, 369, 

Fox, Charles James, his patriotic character, 164. 

— .^ , his death, 218. 

Food distributed from religious houses, 308, 

French Encyclopaedists, their oversight, 1. 

France, its improvements under Napoleon, 121, 170- 

Free agency demonstrated, 241, 7iote, 

Fruit-trees, their general plantation recommended, 168. 

Franklin, Dr. his electrical rods, 189. 



Gainsborough, his tomb and character, 383. 

Garrat, mock mayor of, 77. 

Galilean telescopes, preferred for telegraphs, 146. 

Gardeners, their habits and slavery, 224. 

Geometry, its connexion with nature, 189. 

Geocentric phenomena, error relative, 246. 

Generations, the law of their mixture, 260, &c. 

George III. his liberal views on education, 332. 

Geological changes, their causes traced, 339. 

Ghosts, vulgar belief in, 68, 269. 

Gipsies, interview with, 363- 

Gluttony, lesson to, 195. 

Goldsmid, Mr. his seat, character and history, 272. 

Goodbehere, Alderman, his character, 256. 

God, attributes of, 272. 

Greeks, their mythological personification, 324. 

Gravitation, its causes, 185. 

Grief, its luxury described, 216. 

Greatness, how best sustained, 17. 

Grammars of Philosophy, &c. their merits, 294. 



INDEX, 

Great building^, uo standard of locality, 24'. 
— men, their opinions no test of truth, 40. 
Griffiths, Dr. anecdote of, 213. 
Gradation of organized beings, 346. 
Guelph, the Second, anecdote of, 208. 

H. 

Happiness, its production the test of worth, 8. 

— — — — produced by employment, 174. 

Haunted house, anecdotes of one, 66. 

Harmony of relative existences, 352, 363. 

Harper, Sir John, mayor of Garrat, 78. 

Hartley, David, Esq. his fire-house described, 135. 

Hayley, Mr. his epitaph on Meyer, 381. 

Handel and Haydn compared, 149. 

Hamilton, Lady, her distresses, 182. 

Hedge-rows ought to be productive?, 170. 

Heat, its causes, 185. 

Heydegger, his entertainment, 208. 

Herschell, Dr. his clustering power, 351. 

Historical justice, no atonement for suffering, 9. 

Hindoos, their absurd mythology, 324. 

Houses, method of securing them against fire, 139. 

Home Tourist, his expected modesty, 2. 

Howard, Mr. his exemplary character, 1 16. 

Horses, cruelty of tight-reining them, 1 23. 

House of Commons, character of its majorities, 163. 

Hoare, Mr. bis residence, 201 . 

Hogarth, Mrs. anecdote of, 213. 

, Mr. his tomb and character, 388. 

Horoscope, its supposed powers, 234. 
House of God, its inadequacy, 271. 



Ignorance, the basis of superstition, 73. 
Impress, its frightful tyranny, 366. 
Infatuated nations characterized, 90. 
Ingenuity superseded by taxation, 89. 
Inclination of roads, determined, 121. 
Instructors, clerical, their errors, 265. 
Intellectual powers, their limited nature, 342. 
■ ' — — philosophy, its indestructibility, 321. 



INDEX. 

Instincts of men compared, 364. 
Iroii-foundery. description of one, 86. 
Isle of St. Peter's, its ancient boundaries and modem 
splendor^ 19. 

J. 

Jews, their superstitious demonology, 324. 
Juries, Special, their disgraceful character, 255* 



K. 

Kelvedon, its cleanliness, 230. 
Kew Priory, described, 376. 

■ Green, ditto, 378. 

Kit-Cat Club, its house at Barnes Elms, 201, 204. 
— — , pictures, 207. 



Language, its means of improvement, 298. 
Land, the patrimony of man, 159. 
Lancaster, Mr. his system recommended, 333. 
Lakes of North America, their probable fate, 327. 
Law, its malignity and perversion, 362. 
Legislation, summary of its duties, 104. 
Life, compared to a morning's walk, 390. 
Living errors, corrected too late, 28. 
Liberty, taught in popular elections, 84. 
Life of man, described, 205, 256. 
Lincoln, Bishop of, his attendance on Pitt, 166. 
Lightning, destructive effects of, 182. 

-, means of security from, 189. 
London, its features of ingress and egress, 13. 

, reflection suggested by its distant prospect, 150. 

< , its population characterized, 153. 

■ smoke, described, 130. 

• , its moral suggestions, 149. 

Loco-motion, means of producing, 124. 
Loco-motive beings, their peculiar economy, 347.^ 
Lovers, the dupes of gipsies, 369. 
Lumber trees, unfit for a civilized country, 169. 
Luck and ill-luck, relative terms, 237. 

D d 



INDEX. 



M. 



Matron of a workhouse, her character, 109. 
Manners of the Londoners, 11. 
Mall in St. James's Park, its ancient splendor, 15. 
^Manufactory of pitch and turpentine, 56. 
Manners, effects of a change of, 16. 
Marsh of Westminster, reflection on, 20. 
Madam and Mistress, distinction between, 212. 
Machinery, ought not to injure workmen, 50. 
Maurice, Mr. his merits as a Poet, 150. 
Manufactory, a country one described, 85. 
Matter, inorganic, laws governing, 344. 

• , whether eternal, 350. 

Manual labour, its economy in manufactories, 8&» 
Maternal feelings in a workhouse, 112. 
Man, his false assumption, 60, 359. 

, his pride, 60, 358. 

— — , his unsociable character, 95, 

, his uncharitabteness, 102. 

, his numerous wants, 1 17. 

< , his vanity, 152. 

, his monopolizing spirit, 155, 360. 

, opposes himself to Providence, 158. 

, his proper employment, 159. 

, his true happiness, 174. 

, his transitory state, 205, 361. 

. , his origin, progress, and decay, 205, 256. 

I , his common nature, 262, 360r 

, his definite existence, 272. 

, general views of his social state, 357. 

»^ , his cruelty to inferior creatures, 360. 

Mercy, an engine of priestcraft, 307. 

Mechanics, their relation to nature, 189. 

Meyer, his tomb, 381. 

Milk-fair, description of, 5. 

Military education reprobated, 3^ 

Mile-stone and marme cottages recommended, 127, 

Middleton, Mr. his estimates of Middlesex, 224. 

Misery, dense mass of, 155. 

Ministers of England, their narrow views, 167. 

MoDks, disiuterineat of their bones, 313. 



INDEX. 

Morris, Valentine, Esq. bis benevolent cbaracter, 218, 

300. 
Moral deduced from the state of St. James's palace, 15. 

rule against great mischiefs, 28. 

More, Sir Thomas, his residence and character, 38, 

Motion, terrestrial, its geseral cause, 242, note. 

Mortlake Church-jard, reflect ons on, 232, 263, 

Moral condition of London, 152. 

Mortlake Churoh, reflections within, 363, 280. 

Music, its abuse in war, 10. 

Mutilated Soldiers at Chelsea Hospital, 27. 

Mussulmen, their exemplary sobriety, 65. 

Mysteries, religious, then' origin, 265. 

Mythology, its origin and progress, 320« 

N. 

Natural feelings violated in workhouses, 110. 
Nature superior to art, 118, 154. 

, its operalious uncomplicated, 188. 

, its governing principle, 200. 

Napoleon, his improvements of France, 121, 170. 
Nell Gwin, founder of Chelsea Hospital, 26. 
Necessity, doctrine of, investigated, 235, 244, 
Novels, characterized, 98. 



Obligations of the rich to the poor, 1 03. 
Oil mills, description of one, 84. 
Organic life, difficulty of conceiving its principle, 349. 
Organized beings, intricacy of the laws governing, 345. 
Origin of organized beings, its philosophical obscuritv, 
346. ■ ■ ■ f Jf 

P. 

Painting and Poetry, compared, 384. 
Palace of the Regent, its costly fitting, 6. 
Partridge, John, his tomb and errors, 233. 
Parks of London, their utility and capability, 17. 

, noblemen's, their inutility, 133. 

Patronage, cause of war, 29. 
Parish allowances to the poor, 1 J 3. 



INDEX. 

Pauorama from Wimbledon Common, 149. 

Paper Circulation always ruinous, 181. 

Parish poor-houses described, 109, 193. 

Peace, its security, 33. 

Peach, its crawling mjriads, 352. 

Peter the Hermit, his fanaticism, 39. 

Perihelion point, importance of its place in prodaciDg 

terrestrial changes, 339. 
Peuley, Mr. his garden at Mortlake, 310. 
Philosophy, modern, its divinities, 324. 
■ ■ -, address to, 327. 

Philosophical speculations on unseen powers, 185. 
Pilton's fences recommended, 176. 
Pitt, Mr. his death and character, 162. 
Planetary influences, examined, 234, 252. 
Poetr}- and Painting, compared, 384. 
Poor, diseased, provision for, 5. 
Pottery, observations on its antiquity and application, 

300. 
Pope, Mr. his parlour at Battersea, 53. 
Popular elections, their importance, 82. 
Policy, wicked, its features, 7. 
Poverty and wealth, contiasted, 102. 
Priestcraft, its origin and progress, 320. 
Probabilities, their connexion with fortune-telling, 247. 
Productive powers, their intricacy, 346. 
Promenades, evening ones proposed, 90. 
Prosperity, national, its true signs, 129. 
Principals in trade, their cares, 12. 
Promenade in St. James's Park, its ancient splendor, 15. 
Pride, lessons to correct, 60, 358. 
Printing, its abuse, 362. 
Public Debt, how has it been expended, 41. 
Putney-Heath, objects upon it described, 137, 166. 
Pubhc purse, a necessary stimulus to candidates, 81. 



R. 

Ranelagh, its scite described, 21. 
Railways, proposal for extending them, 75. 
Religious houses turned into market- gardens, 303. 
Reformation of Religion, 267. 
Retreats of men of business, 101. 



INDEX. 

Repton, Mr. his powers of arrangement, 133. 
Rivers, absurd worship of, 355. 

. , phenomena of their banks, 63, 356. 

, agents of never-ceasing changes, 192, 

Richmond Park, notice of, 166. 
Rights of man, intrigues against, 219. 
Road Police, suggested, 123. 
Royal Family, fond of Chelsea bunns, 26. 
Rome sunk and London exalted, 36. 
Roads, principle of constructing them, 121. 
Roehampton, its cheerless aspect, 171. 
Ruins, without antiquity, 23. 



Saws, circular, their wonderful powers, 46. 
Self-knowledge, neglect of, 1, 362. 
Secondary causes, their general nature, 189. 
Senses, animal, their limited powers, 342. 
Slioe-making machinery, account of, 47. 
Show, policy of, among princes, 6. 
Shropshire girls, their industry and beauty, 226. 
Slavery, its protean shapes, 365. 
Sloane, Sir Hans, his statue, 37 — tomb, 40. 
Smoke, improperly emitted, 21. 

* of London, its remarkable phenomena, 130. 

• , plans for consuming, 132. 

Soldiery, their specious character, 10. 
Society, state of, in England, 90. 

Soldiers, why and for what they are killed and wound- 
ed, 27. 
Soldier, who had lost both arms, 29. 
Spontaneous combustion, productive of superstition, 73. 
Spencer, Lord, his park, 133. 
Space, whether eternal, 350. 
Stage-coach horses, mismanagement of, 123. 
Standard of truth defined, 268. 
Sterility of ancient countries, cause of, 356. 
Statesmen, their mistaken policy, 4. 
St. James's palace, its ruined state, 14. 
St. Paul's Cathedral, 151. 
St. Lawrence, the, its probable fate, 337. 
Surfaces, the residence of electric power, 185. 
Surrey, its disgraceful wastes, 156. 



INDEX. 

Supernatural appearances, refen-ed to their causes, 70, "** 
Survivors in regiments, their small numbers, 33. 
Subjects for painters, 108. 
Superstition, instances of, 69, 222. 

, its origin and progress, 320. 

Symmachus, his bigotry, 39. 

T. 

Taxes, not tlie sole business of governments, 18. 
Tart-ball, account of, 18. 
Taxation, its pernicious effects, 89. 
Telegraphs, particulars of, 141, 146. 

■ — , their application to domestic purposes, 146. 

Terror, vulgar, instances of, 68, 375. 
Thames, its phenomena and changes, 355. 
Thomson, the Poet, his town and character, 388. 
Tides, their nature explained, 354. 
Time and space characterized, 201, 256, 272. 
Tooke, Mr. Hornc, his character, 192. 
Tonson, Jacob, his house at Barnes Elms, 201. 
Trees, their importance in fertilization, 356. 
Treasury, British, its pernicious powers, 9. 
Transitory state of man, 16, 24, 52, 59, 312. 
Treaty-breakers, appeal to them, 31. 
Tragedies, in real life, 117, 140. 
Ty bourn, its present course, IQ. 

V. 

Vegetables, their organization, 343. 

Vital principle, its incomprehensible nature, 349. 

Virtue, its worth, 350. 

Virtuous exertion entitled to support, 104. 

Village promenades, proposal for, 96. 

Villages round London, their want of society, 100. 

Villas, no signs of public wealth, 129. 

Village bells, cause of their peculiar effect, 209. 

Virtue, promoted by cleanliness, 231. 

Vulcan, his residence, 86. 

W. 

Washington, the great, his character and glory, T. 
AVar-office, British, its equivocal merit, 9. 



INDElt. 

Water, the cause of change, 64. 
War, its improper duration, 255. 

, its horrors, associated with British grandeur, 11. 

Want, the seat of its empire, 155. 

■ , means of extinguishing, 159. 

Wandsworth, its population, &c. 74. 

■ workhouse, a \isit to, 107. 

Wages of labour, 105. 
Walnut-trees, prodigious ones, 310. 
Waithman, Mr. his patriotic character, 256. 
Waste lands, a libel on political economy, 156. 
Wealth, its personal consequences, 12. 

, its relative nature, 103. 

Welding Hammer, described, 86. 
Westminster Abbey, characterized, 150. 
Webb, Mr. his benevolent character, 116. 
Wesley, Mr. his godlike zeal, 1 17. 

- ■ his mode of riding, 135. 

Webster, Mr. his geological discoveries, 337. 
Welch girls, their industry and beauty, 226, 228. 
Witham, its exemplary cleanliness, 230. 
Winchester palace, notice of, 38. 
Wimbledon Common, its elevation, 119. 

— — , its misuse, 192. 

Workmen, entitled to indemnity on the introduction of 

machinery, 49. 
WooUet, Mr. his skill as an engraver, 134. 
Workhouses, obligation to visit them, 105. 
World, its end explained, 354. 
Wood, Alderman, his patriotic character, 256. 
Wordsworth, Mr. his poetical merit, 270, 
Women, an employment worthy of them, 117. 

Y. 

York-house, the residence of Wolsey, 57. 

Z. 

Zofifany, Mr. his tomb and character, 386. 



ERRATA. 

At page 65, five lines from bottom, insert three commas 
after " beastly, vicious, and diseased,"— and at page 168, 
UnQ 8, for found vend formed. 



Lately were puhlisJied, 

By the same Author, 

I. 

A LETTER to tlie LIVERY of LONDOI>r, on 
the OFFICE of SHERIFF; price 7s. 

II. 

A TREATISE on tlie POWERS and DUTIES 
of JURIES; price 8s. 

IIL 

/« Sheets, for posting in Public Places, price 
Sixpence each, 

1. GOLDEN RULES for JURYMEN. 

S. GOLDEN RULES for ELECTORS. 

3. GOLDEN RULES for MAGISTRATES and 
SHERIFFS. 



J. Adlakd, Printer, 25, Bariholomew Close, London. 



^, 



